by Rachel Aaron
Berek Sted swallowed and clutched his bandaged stump. “And what price do you charge for this?”
The creature smiled. “Obedience.”
“I’m no one’s slave,” Sted spat out.
“Who said anything about slaves?” the demon said.
“You will be my weapon. An unbeatable weapon, greater even than the Heart of War itself. What do you say, do we have a deal?”
Sted stroked the stub of his arm. He’d sworn never to take another order, but he could not beat Liechten as a cripple. His League powers were gone. His skin was as cuttable and weak as any man’s. If he was going to beat the Heart, he needed an edge at any cost.
“And you swear I’ll get to fight Liechten?” Sted said. “Man to man, fair and square?”
The demon shrugged. “If fair is what you like, certainly.”
Sted nodded. “Then you have your deal.”
The creature grinned inhumanly wide, showing a full mouth of teeth and gums. “Welcome to the mountain,” it said, its voice a hissing whisper. “Berek Sted.”
As the creature spoke his name, the corpse of Nivel jumped forward. It moved impossibly fast, slamming its hands into Sted’s bandaged stomach. Sted grunted and fell back as the wounds opened, and he felt something crawl into him. Crawl was the only word to describe it. A shadow fell from the dead woman’s hands into his stomach, galloping into him on waves of fear, revulsion, and bitter cold. Then, as quickly as it had started, it was over. The woman’s corpse flopped to the ground, lifeless again. Sted stood panting, grasping his stomach, but even as he clutched his injured flesh, he felt the skin knitting together under his fingers. Suddenly, the dark shadows of the ravine were clear. The dark was still there, but he could see perfectly. He felt ten years younger, stronger than ever, whole. He had just a moment to revel in this feeling before a crippling pain in his arm sent him to his knees. He turned in horror just in time to see the stump at the end of his shoulder burst open as a hand pushed its way out of his flesh.
Sted cried out in terror. It was no human hand. It was black and shiny, like a bug’s shell, and tipped with five long fingers, human looking but wrong. The hand clenched and grasped, pulling itself out of his arm inch by agonizing inch. An eternity of pain later, it stopped, and a new, black arm slightly longer than his own hung from his shoulder, meeting his body in a mash of flesh that hurt to look at.
Sted stumbled back in horror, but the black arm caught him before he could fall. He stopped and stared at the new limb, wiggling each long, sharp claw just as he would his normal fingers. The more he moved the arm, the more he felt its power. The claws were sharp enough to cut bone, and the black skin was as hard as obsidian. He stood there a moment longer, clenching and unclenching his new fist as a smile began to spread over his face.
There, do I not keep my word?
Sted froze in terror. It was the voice from before, but it had not come from the crumpled corpse of the woman on the ground. It had come from inside his head. The creature was in his head.
I told you. He could almost hear it smirking. You’re my weapon now. We’re going to be very close, you and I. Now, the bear-headed man is coming. It’s time to go home and get your first assignment.
“Where?” Sted’s voice was barely a whisper.
You know where.
And, Sted realized with a creeping horror, he did. Without quite knowing what he was doing, he bent his legs and jumped. The leap sent him flying over the trees, and Sted began to flail as he shot through the morning air.
So much fear, the demon sneered. Get rid of it. Fear is for spirits, not my creatures. You asked for this, Berek Sted. You came to me seeking power, and power I have given you. Don’t tell me you’re too weak to grasp it now that it’s yours.
Sted winced. The creature was right. He could feel the power, an incredible force so much greater than his own. His jump just now, the lack of pain from his injuries, even the black arm was starting to feel like part of himself. It was all power, power he’d paid for, power he’d use to pay back his humiliation.
With this firmly in his mind, Sted hit the ground in a shower of leaves and began to run, skipping northward toward the snow capped mountains through the long morning shadows. He’d show the demon how a real man used power. Already he could feel the fear fading, and the longer he went, the easier it became. Soon, he was grinning at the sheer strength of his motion, the incredible rush of his power.
Deep in his soul, far deeper than Sted’s poor, deaf mind could go, the demon began to laugh.
CHAPTER
2
It was early morning in the port city of Mering on the southern coast of the Council Kingdoms. Down in the bay, the fishing boats were preparing to leave the harbor, the fishermen stringing up their nets by lantern light, for the sun was still just a gray ghost below the horizon. High on the bluffs above the docks, the city lay dark and quiet. Weathered board houses clustered in a nest of narrow, sandy streets, their dark windows open to the warm ocean breeze. Toward the rear of town, where the sandy ground was more solid, stood the Fisherman’s Rest, Mering’s only inn and the only building with an upper story in the entire town, a feature of which its owner, who was also Mering’s mayor, was exceedingly proud.
This night was an exceptionally rare event, for all three of the inn’s upper rooms were occupied, despite the relatively exorbitant price their prestige and views demanded. But the strange pair of men and the silent girl who followed them had been throwing gold around like chicken feed from the moment they’d walked into town, and so the innkeeper had no qualms about putting them up in the best rooms Mering had to offer, especially since, as outsiders, he could charge them triple. He’d even cracked open his best cask of wine in hopes of getting them drunk for even more money, but all he’d gotten was a rowdy party from his regular customers and terrifying glares from the taller stranger with the arsenal strapped to his chest. By morning, however, everything was quiet, even the seabirds, and it was this strange, chancy silence that saved Eli’s life.
He was asleep, sprawled on his stomach on the double bed under the window, snoring quietly. But when one has made his name as the greatest thief in the world, true sleep is a habit you lose quickly, which was the only reason he heard the sound at all. The noise was soft, almost lost in the crash of the distant waves, yet unmistakable to anyone who’d heard it before. A sword snickering in anticipation isn’t a sound you forget.
Eli threw himself out of bed as the blade stabbed into the mattress where his bare back had been a split second earlier. He landed on the floor in a tangle of sheets as the man, head to foot in dark clothing, yanked his sword free. Eli didn’t waste any more time looking. He turned and bolted for the door.
“Josef!” he shouted, scrambling over the rag rug. “JOSEF!”
The assassin caught him on the second yell. The gloved hand closed on Eli’s shoulder, pulling him back with an iron grip as the sword, still snickering, flashed overhead. Eli dodged with an undignified yelp, rolling out of the way as the sword whooshed past him to land with a deadly thunk in the floor. The man ripped it free instantly and tried to give Eli a kick in the process, but the thief was already behind him, going for the window. The man whirled around and raised his sword again, grabbing Eli’s bare foot in his gloved hand to hold the squirming thief still. But then, just as he was about to bring the sword down on Eli’s shoulder, the blade fell from his grasp, and the intruder cried out in pain.
With a lightning-quick motion, Eli caught the falling sword and flipped around, turning the blade on its former master, who was doubled over on the carpet, clutching his sword hand, which now had a throwing knife lodged halfway through its palm. That was all Eli saw before Josef barreled out of the darkness, tackling the man as he went. They landed against the room’s wall in a brawling tangle. The man in black was shorter than Josef by a foot, not to mention lighter and injured, but he had a long knife in his unbloodied hand and Josef, for once, was unarmed. For a frantic moment, the ma
n had the advantage. Using the wall for leverage, he pushed the knife toward Josef, going for the swordsman’s naked throat. Josef leaned away, but he couldn’t get out of reach entirely without letting the man go. When the knife was less than an inch from his throat, Josef had had enough. Faster than Eli could see, Josef ducked inside the man’s reach and, with a rolling turn, flipped their positions.
Or he tried to. But rather than turning along the wall, the assassin’s shoulder slammed into the unlatched window. With a great bang, the shutters flew open, leaving Josef and the man struggling against thin air. They began to fall, each flailing in the air, reaching in vain for the window frame. Just as they started to tumble out of reach, a thin hand shot out of the darkness and grabbed Josef’s wrist.
It was Nico. She was halfway out the window, bracing with both legs against the wide frame, her coat flying around her as she struggled to hold Josef’s weight. Struggled and failed. Even braced, Josef’s weight was too much, and she was rapidly toppling after him. Just before she lost her footing, Eli’s hand grabbed Josef’s wrist just below hers, and together they yanked the swordsman back into the room, landing in a heap on the rag carpet.
“Powers,” Eli gasped, dropping the assassin’s sword, which was no longer snickering. “What about the—”
A sickening crunch finished his sentence for him, and all three of them winced. They sat for a moment in silence before Josef pushed himself up. “I’ll check the body,” he said, his voice calm, as though he did this every night. “Nico, you’re with me. Eli, take the innkeeper.”
Eli and Nico nodded and the group split, Josef and Nico slinking down the stairs, quiet as cats, Eli somewhat more loudly, shouting for the innkeeper. Fortunately, the old man was already rushing across the common room in his night cap and dressing gown, a fluttering lamp in his shaking hands.
“Oh, sir!” Eli cried, jumping away from the stairs to cut him off. “Something dreadful has just occurred!” And with that Eli launched into a terrible story of robbery, foul play, and tragic ends. By the time he finished, the innkeeper, the night staff, the guests, and every neighbor within earshot was gathered in the inn’s common room wearing unified expressions of horror. Eli kept going until he saw Nico wave at him from the front door, signaling that Josef had finished whatever he’d needed to finish. Eli wrapped up his hysterics just as the night watch appeared. Claiming exhaustion, Eli retired to Josef’s room, stopping first at his own to retrieve the large stash of coins he’d hidden beneath a loose board. All evidence safely loaded onto his person, he went next door to Josef’s somewhat smaller room and locked the door behind him.
“That,” he said, “was not how I intended to spend my evening.”
Josef didn’t even look up from the basin where he was washing his hands. “I think your evening came out better than his, if it makes you feel better.”
“It certainly does not,” Eli said, flopping down on the bed beside Nico. “Josef, what is going on? We came to this … wherever we are, to get away from the hunters for a few days. They’re worse than mosquitoes lately. I can count on one hand the number of incident-free days we’ve had in the last two weeks. Did bounty hunting suddenly become the stylish profession? Have we stumbled into a hunter boom, or do I have a ‘Please Ambush’ sign on my back that you haven’t told me about?”
Josef chuckled, wiping his now clean hands on the towel. “Nothing so complicated. Check out the poster on the table.”
Eli glanced over at the end table in surprise, and then reached out to snatch the oversized square of folded parchment, shaking it open as he did so. “It’s just my poster,” he said, frowning. “Wait, this isn’t right.” He looked at Josef. “It has to be a joke. Where did you get this?”
“From the inside pocket of our visitor’s coat,” Josef answered, tossing the towel into the linen bin. “Not that he’ll miss it. And it’s no joke. That’s an official Council bounty notice.”
“Impossible,” Eli scoffed. “I know my own bounty! Counting what Gaol just threw in, I should be at an even seventy-five thousand, eighty thousand if Miranda would ever do as she promised and combine the Spirit Court’s bounty. But even if she accidentally combined it twice over, it wouldn’t explain this.” He flipped the poster around and held it up. There, below the usual picture of Eli’s smiling face, was a number written in tall, blocky strokes: 98,000 gold standards.
“This is a breakdown of government,” Eli said. “What’s the Council of Thrones coming to if it can’t even keep something as important as my bounty straight?”
“Whatever the reason,” Josef said, “we may need to lie low for a bit.”
“I thought we were lying low,” Eli said, still frowning at his poster.
“Lower, then,” Josef snapped back. “All this attention is causing problems, like the one that just fell out of your window. That man wasn’t your standard thug chasing the Eli lottery. He was a professional. He didn’t wake you up or brag or try to take you alive. No, he did it exactly how I would have, clean and quick in the night. If you hadn’t woken up when you did, you never would have felt a thing.”
Eli gave him a dirty look. “Just how you would have? Have you thought about this before?”
“Only when you’re being a jerk,” Josef said dryly. “Listen, I don’t know why the number is so high, but attacks like this one are only going to happen more often. And once your bounty breaks a hundred thousand, we’re going to start seeing armies coming after us. We need our trail to be ice cold when they do.”
Eli heaved a defeated sigh. “Fine, fine, where would be low enough for you? And don’t say the mountains. I’ve had more than enough wandering through the wilderness.”
Josef leaned against the washstand. “I was thinking we could go home.”
Eli froze. That was not the answer he’d expected. Nico, on the other hand, lifted her head. “Home?”
Josef nodded. “It’s as low as we get. No one will find us there.”
“But home is so boring,” Eli said. “Nothing happens.”
Josef crossed his arms over his chest. “Nothing’s supposed to happen. Do you not understand the concept of lying low?”
“Fine, fine,” Eli said, shaking his head. “We’ll slip out tomorrow morning before whatever passes as the guard in this boring depression of a town gets too close and decides I look familiar.”
“I’m surprised it hasn’t happened already,” Josef said. “Since you didn’t even bother with disguises.”
“My disguises are for my jobs,” Eli said with a sniff. “I wouldn’t waste them on places like this.”
Josef just shook his head.
“Anyway,” Eli said, lying back on the bed, “if we’re going to be cutting out early, let’s get some sleep at least. It would be a horrible shame to waste a rare night of sleep in a bed.”
“Right,” Josef said. “So get out of mine.”
Eli looked at him innocently. “But my room still has people poking around in it.”
“Too bad,” Josef said, glaring. “Floor or hallway, pick one.”
After some argument, Eli ended up on the floor with one of Josef’s pillows and an extra quilt from the chest. Nico excused herself halfway through the bickering, trailing back to her room with a weary look that stuck with Eli long after Josef put out the light.
“Josef,” Eli said in the dark, “what’s going on with Nico?”
The swordsman’s quiet breathing continued without interruption, but somehow he knew Josef was listening.
“What happened in Gaol?” Eli asked, more quietly this time. “I’ve seen her lift you over her head like you weighed nothing, so why couldn’t she pull you out of the window by herself? There’s something going on with her demon, isn’t there?”
His question hung in the silence. Then, at last, Josef answered. “Leave it alone.”
Eli took a deep breath. “I have left it alone. We haven’t pulled any thefts since leaving Gaol. I’ve been waiting to see if she’d snap out of it, or
at least say what’s happening. But she doesn’t tell me anything!” He crossed his arms over his chest. “Everyone’s got secrets, but this could get dangerous for us if I can’t trust her on a job anymore. Her not telling me she was a wizard was bad enough, but I can get over that. I can understand. This?” He shook his head. “I don’t even know anymore.”
He heard the bed creak as Josef rolled over. “I don’t know what’s wrong either,” the swordsman said. “And I’m not going to push it. Whatever’s going on with Nico, it’s a battle she has to fight herself. If she needs us, she’ll ask.”
Eli frowned. “Are you sure about that?”
Josef’s long breaths were his only answer, and Eli knew the conversation was over. He tried to think of a way to bring the topic up again from a different angle, but all he got were more dead ends until, at last, he drifted off to sleep as well, curled up in a ball on the rug in the middle of Josef’s floor.