by Tia Reed
For once, she could think of no reply. Nor did he give her the chance to formulate one, dropping from sight as the door burst open. Matisse, shirt and arms splattered with blood, barged into the room, his sword dripping. A host of ragged guards crowded behind him. The foolish new recruits loitered in the corridor, a wise decision considering her current mood.
“Prahak’s fleeing through the alley,” she said, stepping to the chest and sliding her hands down the dagger to sever the rope. Three of the guards bolted down the stairs while another climbed out of the window. Jordayne flicked the last strand of rope at her brother’s feet. “Having fun, were we?” she asked.
Matisse’s mouth pulled into something between a grin and a grimace. “What’s the matter? Did you find yourself out of your depth for once?” But he waved the guards out and closed the door.
“We were ambushed by the cursed best fighters I’ve ever had the pleasure of sparring with. I lost two good men taking down seven of theirs. The rest fled but I’d give a small fortune in gold to have them join the army if it comes to war.”
“There’s more chance of Vae’oeldin descending from the heavens to head the troops. We’ve been warned to curb our embargo on the porrin trade.” She rubbed the red creases in the skin around her wrists.
“Your idea of midnight entertainment, I suppose,” Matisse said with a disdainful twitch of his lip.
She flicked him a look of utter contempt. “You are perilously close to a dagger at your throat. And Ordosteen would blame me not one whit.”
“The problem, sis,” he said, striding up to her and pushing her onto the pallet with as much need for dominance as Prahak had displayed, “is that with you it is impossible to tell.”
Really! She glared at him. “And just who do you think would have been tied up if I’d had my way?”
He noticed the prick at her neck then. He scratched the drop of congealing blood from her skin. His expression altered, his disdain giving way to a cold, determined fury as his eyes scanned her body and detected the light scratch at her belly, white against her brown skin. “I believe you are entitled to have Dario enter your service.” He pulled her up and wiped his blade on the bedcover. “It’s a damn good sword. Every bit as good as the one stolen from me. But I’ve yet to become accustomed to its weight. It will need more breaking in before I go to war.”
A more explicit oath was unnecessary. She understood his sense of honour well. She might have said perfectly before that comment about her enjoying a man’s forced attention. “I have already promised Prahak as much,” she replied. She picked up the shred of nail and gathered the strands of hair. A ripped scrap off the bedcover served well enough to fold them in. She pinned the wad to the inside of her waistband. Her brother watched her with cautious suspicion. He had mingled with mages enough to guess what use could be made of the smallest body part. As she tugged her dagger from the wood and tucked it at her hip, Matisse opened the door.
“Our mounted contingent caught us up. They’ve had a profitable evening,” he said as they descended to the common room.
A few of those weary men, as grimy as the party Matisse had led, were clearing the tavern of cowering patrons. The reason for the hasty exodus was slumped in a pool of blood in the doorway to the common room, his hands severed from his body and his eyes gouged out. Jordayne gulped and turned away from the mutilated innkeeper, but not before her quick mind had deciphered the letters scrawled in his blood: Snitch. The message was clear indication Prahak meant to rule his own addicted empire through fear. Her Empire first and foremost. She placed a hand on her bare stomach. Her formidable reputation would fall into ruins if she was sick in front of all these men. How fortunate Naldo was scurrying her way.
“Did you see? Did you see what he wrote?” Dear Naldo had shaded his face with the floppy top of his unfashionable turban and was hunched into his shoulders, looking every way in a manner that proclaimed his guilt for all Kaijoor to see. She was every bit as shaken as he, but where was his common sense?
Taking his quivering hand, she led him to the front door. “Do calm down. If you’re not the snitch you have nothing to worry about. And you have Lord Matisse’s sword to protect you,” she said louder than necessary.
That brought his ego to the fore. He drew himself up with a haughty lift of his chin. “My sword skills surpass your brother’s in every regard. It is he for whom I am worried.” He opened the door, bowing and unfurling a hand as though she were the one in need of reassurance.
“Of course, dear friend,” she said, gliding out of the tavern with a sway of the hips she knew would take his mind off the gruesome murder.
In the fresh air, she placed a hand on his arm. “Do keep an eye on Matisse, Naldo. He’s not in the most rational of minds.” He grinned, and she relaxed. The request would keep the artist safe within the circle of guards, at least for tonight.
The tha-tha-thum of urgent hooves made her look around. Sergeant Rokan cantered into view, leading her mare. He tugged the reins with a force that set the horses protesting.
“My lady, I bid you come at once,” he said, fighting to control his prancing gelding.
“What is it?” she asked taking Aribelle’s reins and mounting. Only once before had this man appeared jittery before her, that hexed day outside Weng Wu’s emporium that been the first crack in a deepening wedge between her and Drucilamere. Despite the curt dressing down she had given him, his nerves had been warranted three times over.
“Your eyes must answer for themselves, my lady,” Rokan answered as he turned his gelding and kicked him into haste.
Jordayne glanced at Matisse. He was debriefing the men in the mounted party, albeit with a sharp tongue, leaving her to organise her own escort. Naldo, in his ebullient manner, would defend any addicts that straggled into their determined path. If he could get over his fright. Satisfied she was not needed, she urged her horse after Rokan, who was disappearing around a corner. With a growing sense of unease, she followed to the shadowy public gardens on the waterfront. They rode the wide grassy stretch between majestic oaks, past the moonlit gleam of the white amphitheatre to the path meandering along the shore. On the quiet waters, Dindarin presented a perfect reflection of first quarter serenity. The moonlight accentuated Rokan’s agitated shuffles.
“I am here,” she said, gazing over the seductive tranquillity of the lake. Once this business was finished, she would have to make a midnight visit to mage guild. A moonlit sail might disperse Drucilamere’s ire upon the ripples. The corner of her mouth twitched. She would have him imbibe a smidgeon of the porrin they had recovered tonight, under pretext of assessing its purity. An intoxicated mage was a pliable one. And his magic would keep the echoes of their past at bay as she teased him into an apology of sorts.
“Well?” she asked when Rokan did not speak.
“There,” he said, nodding his chin to the north.
Bathed in Dindarin’s eerie green glow, a lone figure plodded along the bank. Water dripped from his rough garb and his bare feet trod the sodden earth. A drunk perhaps; a spy even; but this was no demon to rouse Rokan’s hackles. She nudged her horse in its direction.
“Lady Jordayne, wait,” Rokan said with the sharpness of authority.
Just as well this one had not tumbled for her charms. She would never had tolerated that tone otherwise. As it was, he needed to be reminded of his place. She turned her head and raised a haughty eyebrow. Immune to her amused condescension, the seasoned guard brought his horse to her side and whistled. She looked around to see a soldier emerging from the shadow of the sole eating house permitted in the gardens. Lanterns yet hung from the eaves, the privileged owner no doubt still inside clearing up from a busy evening serving the well-to-do in the city. Crouched low, the soldier ran towards the source of Rokan’s disquiet. The mysterious figure plodded on, oblivious to the scrape of a sword being drawn, the malicious gleam of moonlight on a blade.
Jordayne narrowed her eyes. Unfortunate addicts were not to fall
to the sword. They had need of a hospice, not the venting of bloodlust Matisse was dishing up in the guise of justice. Her orders had been exceedingly clear.
“Hold!” she called, frowning. She kicked Aribelle forward, but Rokan had taken hold of the bridle. “What is this?” she demanded of him.
“Watch.” The taut word convinced her to bide her precious time, and though Rokan would not see her pursed lips she made sure the set of her shoulders held the stiffness of a warning.
The soldier circled the figure, approached from behind and swung his sword across the neck. The head tipped onto the shoulder, lay there for two steps, and then toppled to the ground.
In her rage, she froze. Two deep breaths it took her to regain enough control to speak. “You risk my displeasure, soldier. I am not my love-crazed brother to delight in the needless slaughter of men.”
“Watch.” In the saddle, Rokan strained forward, intent. Her long look, designed to intimidate, was lost on him. Jordayne appraised the soldier, and blinked. The body yet stood. The dripping corpse turned, bent, picked up the head and set it on its shoulders. It shuffled around until its unblinking eyes fixed on the soldier. Raising its arms, it walked forward. The dutiful man slashed at its hand. The stroke connected. She saw it did. How did this monster press on unscathed?
The soldier was scrambling now, his movements growing jerky, his sword slashes wild as his panic rose. Rokan whistled, loud and shrill. The lad turned and fled. The corpse plodded after him. As the soldier scampered for the cover of the building, the atrocity was exposed to her full view. Moon and lanterns painted his pale skin a sickly hue but the chilling recognition was there: the ragged cut of his red beard, the gaping wound in his abdomen through which his entrails fell and dragged upon the dirt.
Vae protect her. The dead were walking.
“It’s strangled Bern. It’s dead five times over. That. . .thing. . .it cannot be killed. It neither breathes nor bleeds.” The measure of calm her sergeant had assumed cracked. His shoulders wobbled and his voice rose an octave. “Forgive me, my lady. I had not the words to describe this.”
“How?” she asked. He shook his head. She had not expected even that much of a response, but an answer was imperative.
“Track it. We must know where it goes, but do not risk another life.” She turned her horse on a lek. Refusing to hear Rokan’s protests she should wait for guards, she cantered out of the gardens and across the city, to the south gate, where she threatened demotions until the overprotective guards let her out. It was a gallop free of cobbles and sharp turns up the slope to the burial ground. Ignoring the sinister pull of Faradil Forest, she jumped the low stone wall. She steered the mare past a statue of Vae’oenka, through the tended graves of the once well-off to the neglected paupers’ field beyond. At its edge, the horse whickered and baulked. Aribelle had more sense than she because no amount of coaxing could persuade her to walk on. Low in the west, Dindarin cast an ominous glow into the silence. Vae’oenka forbid dark magic infiltrate her land, but the stench of it was strong. Dismounting, she threw the reins over the horse’s head as four guards, led by Rokan, breached the wall. Ignoring their renewed calls to wait, she walked forward. Parched grass rustled as her skirts swept through it. The rich smell of turned earth guided her. Overgrown mounds marked the mass graves of the poor but there, near the far wall, was a telltale scar of brown. That the grave had been excavated was obvious from the heap of loose soil beside it.
“Are you in the habit of disobeying orders?” she asked as Rokan reached her.
“Hardin and Sordan are better trackers than I.”
The names were unfamiliar. “Not those untried, useless boys Matisse offloaded onto me?”
“Satrap Mamid’s sons. They’ve spent their youth roaming The Slopes, and they are not unfamiliar with the city. Lord Matisse thinks they can be shaped into scouts for the coming war.”
“That might take some doing.”
“Between you and me, we’ll whip them into men.”
That made her smile. Might even have made her laugh if the stench of black arts had not pervaded the breezy night. “So you, I take it, are my protector for the remainder of the evening?”
“From the unnatural? My lady, I shall lay my life on the line for you, but in this you need the master magus.”
Her smile widened as she raised an eyebrow. “I shall indeed have him after this.”
She drew her dagger. Rokan needed no other telling to draw his sword as they walked forward to stare into the pit. The reek of decay forced a hand over her mouth. She turned away, but not before she had seen. Two pairs of glazed eyes stared up from severed heads sitting on two tangled torsos, one belonging to a man with a bandage on his shoulder, the other to a clean-shaven youth. At the side of the grave, gouges marred the loose earth, two sets of five as though hands had raked for purchase.
“Vae protect us,” Rokan murmured.
“This lies outside the province of the Vae,” she replied.
“I will fetch the grave-digger,” Rokan said. “He should know which corpse walks abroad.”
Jordayne shook her head. She already knew. “It is the corpse of a rapist. He proves to be fouler in death than in life.” She looked to the south west, to where Mage Cove, obscured by cliff and night, lay.
Rokan marked the line of her gaze. “Do you wish to consult the mages tonight or will you wait for dawn?”
Night visits offered indulgences she had not sampled since Drucilamere picked a petty fight over the way Ordosteen had bartered Kordahla. She glanced skyward. Dindarin had disappeared behind a cloud. With neither moon shining over the cove, there was no inkling of a sign from the gods. Well, the tidings were dire enough even Drucilamere could not denounce a moonlit visit as manipulation. She opened her mouth but her decision found no voice. From the direction of the cove, an intense beam of light soared to the heavens.
“Vae protect us,” Rokan murmured. He sank to one knee and formed the triangle of the Vae with his forefingers and thumbs. “What magic is this?”
Jordayne didn’t answer. She was already hurrying towards the edge of the cliff.
Chapter 15
ONE OF EROK’S feet tapped a gnarled root; the other thudded a short stride to save him from a fall. From the west, the howl of an ogre chilled the forest to silence. An answering call from the north pulled Sian up short. Three nights after they had evaded the ogre nest, she was still jumping at every sound.
“It’s close,” she whispered, glancing up. Neither Dindarin nor the stars were visible through the dense canopy.
“So is the village,” Erok answered.
Sian took a deep breath. The moonbeam was swinging through the knot of trees and vine. She followed it. Erok stumbled behind.
“How can you see?” he grumbled.
“Don’t you see it?”
“See what?”
“The moonbeam.”
“You have the eyes of an owl.”
She stopped again. Dindarin’s light was bright, bestowing a silver shimmer on leaf and bark. A moth fluttered into its centre, its yellow wings splotched with green circles and blood-red crescent moons. “Beautiful,” she breathed. She held out a hand. The butterfly landed on her finger.
“It’s dark.”
That made no sense. She watched the butterfly flit to an orchid. The ogre howled again. She gasped. “A young female.”
“You learn fast. Now we go up. High up.” Waving his hands in front of him, Erok tottered to a sturdy oak whose broad limbs curved close to the floor. He grunted as he collided with the trunk.
“Don’t you see?”
He looked past her. “You are a shadow. The forest is a shadow.”
The deeper whoop, whoop, whoop of a seasoned male echoed from the east. She scurried to Erok. The moonbeam cut its way across her path. She leapt over it and placed a hand upon a smooth branch. The Spirits weren’t happy that she did; the forest fell into utter darkness. Over her shoulder, the moonbeam danced the way ah
ead, its narrow beam lighting a circle of leaf-litter on the forest floor. Sian turned. The forest shimmered silver.
“We need to go on.”
“The ogres are too close. There are too many.” Erok’s leather vest scraped across bark.
She stood, caught between him and the moonbeam. “Dindarin wants us to go on.”
He sighed and thumped to the ground. “A hunter cannot argue with a moon, little soothsayer.”
She frowned. “I’m not a soothsayer.” It was wrong of him to call her that. Soothsayers were wise and respected. She was foolish and flawed and despised. Ishoa would not approve.
Erok grunted as he placed a hand on her back to usher her on. “We don’t dawdle. You lead, and you hold my hand.”
She liked his strong grip. It didn’t matter the ogres were close because she was always safe with him. Another league and she knew they were close. Through gaps in the trees she glimpsed a fire burn. They were home.
“Who comes?” a voice called from the gloom when a twig cracked beneath her foot. There were many fires, burning in hearths placed around the village, and out on the Meeting Field.
“Erok and Sian,” the hunter called.
Leaves crackled underfoot as a large man jogged out and embraced Erok. “A welcome return,” Draykan, leadsman of the Ho’akerin, greeted.
“A longed-for homecoming,” Erok replied in the way of the tribe.
Draykan released his son and placed his hands on Sian’s shoulders. His beam didn’t diminish any. “A welcome return,” he repeated, hugging her. She looped her arms around him, pressed her cheek to his fur vest, and looked up at his whiskery chin. No one had ever been pleased to see her before.
“Your arm,” he said, reaching behind his waist to unwrap it. A drop of moisture landed on her nose. A tear. Had he really missed her?
“The spirits healed it,” she whispered, shy again.
“The tribe must give many thanks for you.”