“Stay here,” Nightshade said, indicating a spot at a distance from the altar. “If the sacrifice is accepted, Colduraan may give us a gift. It would be wise to keep your distance.”
With that, Nightshade walked briskly toward the altar, as the sun approached its zenith. Neven scowled at his back, though decided to indulge the witch and say nothing. Part of him remained curious, while a niggling sense of apprehension suggested he might be safer at an even greater distance. He steeled his nerve, unwilling to show his concern.
When the sun hung directly overhead, Nightshade began his chant. Four pillars with candles stood at the quarters around the altar. Nightshade moved widdershins between them, lighting each one with a word and asperging the space between them. As he walked he chanted, and his steps formed the rhythm to his motion. He picked up a censer and repeated the motions with incense that smelled to Neven of blood, rot, and the wet dirt of the grave.
Nightshade withdrew a knife from his belt and raised it in supplication to the sky. “Colduraan! Ancient among all, god of making and unmaking, of chaos and the void. Hear me and accept my sacrifice! He Who Watches, ancient of days, first among the First Beings, turn your eyes upon us and grant us favor!”
He brought the knife down point first into the captive’s chest, and then pulled it free and slit his throat. Blood spattered Nightshade’s white robes and golden hair, painting him in crimson. His ecstatic expression suggested that he welcomed the warm red rivulets that tracked down his face and arms.
His chants grew faster, and he danced with the bloody knife in the space between the altar and the candles. With each circle, Nightshade’s movements grew more frenzied, slashing about with the knife, raising his arms, and contorting his body. Neven watched with a mix of horror and revolted fascination.
On the next round, Nightshade brought the knife down, time and again, across his own flesh, cutting into the skin of his forearms until both were bleeding freely, staining his sleeves bright red. He seemed to care nothing for the pain, if he felt it at all in his transcendent state. He clasped his bloody hands together and shook his arms over the corpse, adding his blood to the crimson rivers flowing down the stone.
“Hear me, Lord of Chaos! He Who Consumes the Stars, hear my prayer! God of Unmaking, favor your servant with your presence.”
Neven drew back a step, unnerved by the gyrations and hysterical cries. He had long ago ceased to be shocked by Nightshade’s gory offerings, but seeing his blood witch in what could only be considered a fit of madness stirred fear on a primal level.
The air outside the circle shimmered, and as Neven gasped, a seam appeared, a black rip as if someone had grasped the sky and torn it asunder. Darkness spilled out, and the tall grasses all around it immediately withered and died, leaving a brown, burned circle. An unholy shriek sounded in the black of the other side, and red eyes glowed. Then with a leap, a creature with the squashed face and back-laid ears of a bat and the body of a black-haired sow sprang from the rip and stood poised to charge within the circle of destruction.
“Praise to Colduraan! Praise to He Who Watches! Thank you, Lord of Destruction, and First of the First Beings, for accepting this sacrifice!” Nightshade praised. And in the next instant, he threw himself at the monster, landing on its back, and brought his knife down over and over into the creature’s hide.
The vestir shrieked and tried to shake Nightshade from astride him, but the blood witch held on with the strength of madness, stabbing again and again as the monster bucked and jerked to cast off its attacker.
Neven could not make out the words, but Nightshade chanted furiously throughout the attack, his eyes alight with frenzy, and his robes now sodden and dark with blood. One final blow brought the creature down, and Nightshade thrust his knife through its throat, allowing its blood to fountain over him like the blessing of the god he praised. In the next moment, he bent and swiftly drew the blade along the belly of the monster, spilling out its steaming guts onto the dead grass. He seized its entrails, cut them loose, and draped them around his neck and shoulders like a mantle.
“All praise and glory to Colduraan, He Who Drains the Seas and Crushes the Mountains. God of the Storm and the Maelstrom. Honor to He Who Watches, first among the Ancient Ones, for favoring us with his notice. We will prepare your way and make ready your feast.”
Neven recoiled, no longer caring that he stared at the blood witch with wide, frightened eyes, mouth agape. He had suspected madness was either required to work blood magic or a consequence of its horrors, but he had no doubt now that Nightshade was utterly insane.
Insane, powerful, and favored by an Elder God of chaos and one of his original monsters.
The Rift closed, taking the dark tendrils of the taint with it. Just for an instant, before the rip in space snapped shut, Neven thought he saw inhuman orange eyes fixed on him, staring out of the primal darkness. Nightshade bowed forward, heaving for breath, eyes still bright with ecstasy. His body trembled as the cost of the magic and the physical exertion took its toll.
“Did you see?” he asked, straightened and turning toward Neven. His hair hung in dark, gory tangles and his robes clung to his body, soaked crimson. He looked like an avenging god or a berserk warrior, returned insane from battle. “He heard. He sent us a sign. My offering was accepted! We will be victorious—we have the favor of an Elder God and the attention of a First Being! Nothing can stand against us.”
Neven’s shock subsided. “I’ll reserve judgment until our ends are accomplished,” he snapped. “Clean yourself up, and see that the mess is taken care of.” With that, he turned on his heel and walked back the way he had come, barely restraining himself from breaking into a run.
Chapter Twenty-Five
“We’re both after the same men, and I know how to trap them.”
Hant Jorgeson leaned back in his chair, doing his best to project cool certainty.
The rough man across from him, the emissary for the smugglers, regarded him with clear doubt. “If you know, why haven’t you done it by now?”
Jorgeson shrugged. “Ravenwood is a big place. It took a while to find them. But we both have a score to settle with the Valmonde brothers and their outlaw friends. They’re the ones who killed your fellows, and they’re wanted for crimes back in the city. Help me, and I can make sure the Crown Prince never hears of your activities.” The implied threat of what would occur without their help remained unspoken.
“Say on.” The smuggler’s eyes held an intelligent glint, and Jorgeson reminded himself not to underestimate the man.
“We believe someone has paid them to spy on you; likely a rival of your patron,” Jorgeson lied. He suspected Merchant Prince Kadar benefitted from the smuggling, though he lacked hard evidence he could take to Aliyev. Then again, Kadar’s dealings with the Crown Prince was none of his concern, and hardly what he needed to worry about to keep body and soul together. He owed Aliyev information, but that should not be confused with loyalty.
“My people have tracked them to this area. We can draw them out, make them vulnerable—and then we strike.”
“And what is your intent?” the smuggler asked. “Kill or capture?”
“Capture—for the Valmondes and their gang. You’re free to kill anyone else who helps them.”
The smuggler rubbed a hand across his chin. “We don’t want to attract attention. For obvious reasons.”
“Yet you want vengeance for the men the Valmondes killed,” Jorgeson said. “I’m offering you the best way to get it. Provide reinforcement, and we’ll take credit for the kill. You fade back into the shadows knowing revenge was served. There’ll be nothing to track back to your… enterprises… or your master.”
“What’s your plan?” The smuggler folded his arms across his chest, still unconvinced.
“The Valmondes fancy themselves monster hunters,” Jorgeson replied. “There’s a legend about an old mine near here that fools say is haunted. My… associates… will make sure it lives up to its reputation, causes p
roblems for the villagers. That’ll bring the Valmondes, thinking they’re coming to the rescue. But instead, they’ll only find us.” He flashed a predatory smile.
“And what do we do? We’re businessmen, not soldiers.”
“Our success depends on making sure they can’t get away. Your men help surround the area, and if the Valmondes and their fellow outlaws run your way, you stop them.” His smile widened. “You’re free to be as violent as you want about it, short of killing them. I need them questioned before they die.”
“How do I know you won’t turn on us?” the smuggler asked, and Jorgeson could see that the man was interested but wary.
“Your activities are not my concern,” Jorgeson replied. “Once this is over, we will conveniently forget we ever met. I will take my prize back to the city, and you’ll go on with your… business.”
“All right,” the smuggler said, nodding his head. “Let’s talk about when and where.”
The old mine loomed dark and silent, an empty socket sunk deep into the hillside. It sat a few miles from the nearest village, far enough that their activities were unlikely to be noted by townsfolk or farmers, but believably close to cause the havoc that would bring the Valmondes to their reckoning.
“You mean there’s actually something down there?” Jorgeson asked Spider, watching the gangly witch emerge shaken from the mine’s depths.
“More than one ‘something,’” Spider replied. “I don’t think they’ll come easily to do our bidding. We’d be better off using magic to haunt the place ourselves.”
“I want both,” Jorgeson demanded. “They’ve slipped through our fingers too often for this to fail. You and Roach need to handle the evidence—slice up some cattle and sheep and leave the bodies. Snatch a child or two—kill the little bastards for all I care, but hide their corpses so the Valmondes can fancy themselves rescuers. Then push the damn ghosts out of the mine and turn them loose for a night or two before you stuff them back in.”
“It doesn’t work—”
“Then make it work!” Jorgeson roared. “I’ll have a couple of the guards go down to the village pub ranting about haunts and monsters. That should get their attention.”
“My lord,” Spider objected, “we don’t even know if the Valmondes have any contact with the village.”
“They have an uncanny habit of showing up wherever a vengeful ghost or creature goes on a rampage,” Jorgeson snapped. “So work a little blood magic while you’re at it, conjure in a monster or two, for good measure. The Valmondes have witches of their own; maybe they can sense the power.”
Roach looked at his master with barely concealed derision. “If they could ‘sense’ our magic, then why haven’t we been able to sense theirs?”
Jorgeson fixed him with a wilting glare. “Because their witches are better than you.”
“Or perhaps you’re imagining a power that doesn’t exist,” Roach retorted. “They could be finding their hunts by luck.”
Jorgeson shook his head. “No, their witches have a system of some sort. If they were just happening upon monsters, they wouldn’t have made so many kills. And we’ve got eyes in enough pubs that we know they aren’t making a habit of chatting up the locals looking for their next fight. But there’ve been five monster kills within a three day’s ride of here in the last few weeks.” He nodded. “That tells me they’ve found a base, and they’re close. All we need to do is bait the trap.”
“I don’t like the ghost part,” Spider whined. “Ghosts are unpredictable. Hard to control.”
“Wouldn’t it be wonderful if we had blood witches for that—oh wait, we do,” Jorgeson snapped. “So make use of the balls you were born with and do your job.”
He stalked away, leaving the two witches fuming behind him. The last word he had gotten from Aliyev—brought by rider from the city—excoriated him for incompetence and warned that the Crown Prince’s patience grew thin. More worrisome was Aliyev’s comment that the growing unrest in the villages—farmers and merchants taking up arms against the monsters, no doubt egged on by the Valmondes—would be seen as outright rebellion should King Rellan hear of it.
Jorgeson’s years serving the late Lord Mayor Machison taught him to note what went unsaid. Between the “unrest” as the peasants took up arms and the impact Kadar’s smugglers no doubt made on the rural Guild trades, Ravenwood was quite possibly in danger of defaulting on its agreement with Garenoth. Jorgeson grasped the consequences of that possibility perhaps more than did Aliyev.
Working around Blackholt had taught Jorgeson about the Balance and the Cull. If Ravenwood were to lose its League status, part of its disgrace would include being called upon to pay a higher death toll with the Cull. And that would surely be the spark in the tinder that pushed Ravenwood into outright revolt.
“Bloody Valmondes,” Jorgeson muttered, retreating to the peddler’s wagon he had commandeered as his headquarters and lodging. He set a thick circle of salt and aconite mixture around his horses and his wagon, stirring in iron filings for good measure. After what he had seen the night Ravenwood City burned, he knew not to put his full trust in amulets or protective talismans. Salt and iron worked.
If he had his preference, he would be far away in much more comfortable lodgings. Sheer common sense would have him a league distant, not within sight of both the mine and the open space where Spider and Roach meant to work their blood magic.
Jorgeson took a swig from his flask and sighed, sitting back with a sword and dagger in hand. He had tried delegating, sending out guards and bounty hunters, to no avail. They either returned empty-handed or didn’t return at all. Aliyev may have given him Spider and Roach to use, but from what he had seen of the blood witches’ abilities, the gesture probably stemmed from a desire to keep them from mucking up their magic close at hand, rather than out of any belief they might provide help.
And if the witches are that deficient, it hardly suggests that he assigned me competent guards. This was Aliyev’s excuse for getting rid of all of us—me included. A way to eliminate an embarrassment, while saving face for himself.
Jorgeson slept fitfully that night, twitching awake at every sound. He knew that out there in the darkness, the two blood witches and a few of the guards set the scene, killing livestock and a few unfortunates from the nearest village.
Well after midnight, the mages returned. Blood soaked their clothing and that of the two guards who accompanied them. They brought with them two young men, both in their teens. They, too, were bloodied, but still alive judging from their groans and weak struggle.
“Is it done?” Jorgeson asked when they came to present their captives.
“We killed a dozen sheep and four cows, left them cut up enough to make the farmers talk plenty about angry ghosts,” Spider said, with a grin.
“We’ll take care of the rest now since we’ve got the warm bodies we needed,” Roach added, shaking one of the bound men who hung limply in the soldiers’ grasp.
“See to it,” Jorgeson snapped. “The night’s wasting.”
Jorgeson angled himself so he could watch Spider and Roach prepare their working. If I’m lucky, this will draw out the Valmondes and be done with it.
Guards stood in the bed of another wagon, also ringed with salt. They held their crossbows ready, though if the ghosts Spider and Roach summoned from the mine turned vengeful, quarrels would be of little help. The two blood witches hauled the unfortunate young captives into the field not far from the mouth of the mine, and set their warding, unwilling to expose themselves either to the angry ghosts or to whatever might come through from the other side of the Rift they intended to open. Spider and Roach might be underwhelming in their abilities, but they had a gift for self-preservation.
When the preparations were complete, Spider and Roach each grabbed one of the bound prisoners and hauled the terrified young men to their knees. Blood magic grew stronger from fear and pain; that much, Jorgeson had learned from his association with Blackholt. The witches
’ blades burned bright as fire as they chanted and traced sigils in the air before the knives faded once again into darkness.
Their voices rose and fell, and all the while the captives struggled unsuccessfully to break free. From the amount of blood on their clothing, Jorgeson could guess that the young men had put up a fight. Given the nature of the ritual, it was likely their capture had been more punishing than necessary to subdue them.
With a sharp cry, Spider and Roach brought their knives down in tandem, first making a deep slash across the prisoners’ throats and then sinking their blades into the unlucky men’s chests. Blood sprayed from the wounds, soaking the witches’ clothing, and they clearly welcomed it, as if it were a cleansing rain.
The bodies slumped to the grass. Spider and Roach took up their chant once more, carving sigils into the air, and the night around them thickened and trembled. Jorgeson could not force down the fear that rose watching the sky itself twist and buckle.
A shriek echoed from the depths of the old mine, and despite himself, Jorgeson jumped in surprise. Instinct bid him run, and it took all of his will to remain where he was, keeping his grip firm on the reins to calm the horses. Even though the wagon team had been blindered and hobbled, they tossed their heads worriedly and whinnied in fear.
The air in front of Spider and Roach ripped apart, revealing the place beyond it to be even darker. Out of the depths, four higani scuttled at full speed, their white shells glistening in the night, joints clicking as they moved, chittering among themselves.
The guards cried out in fear, but only one deserted his post. The higani set on him immediately, moving faster than their round bodies and long, jointed legs seemed capable of going, quickly outpacing the terrified soldier.
One of the creatures slashed the back of the man’s legs with its sharp, pointed foreleg, hamstringing him. The guard fell, screaming in vain for help. The rest of the higani swarmed over his thrashing body, sharp claws stabbing like daggers, plunging in again and again until the screams choked into nothing and the dying man lay twitching in a pool of blood.
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