“I want to know what’s changed in the time we’ve lost,” he snapped. “I suspect you’ll find a horse and wagon are gone, at the very least. Get Hanson’s body out of here, and then bring back that information.”
They scrambled to obey, grateful to get out of his presence alive. Kadar went to the window and looked down over the courtyard, watching the soldiers running to carry out his orders. Before long, the captain and the second guard returned.
“M’lord,” the captain said, out of breath. “Everything that could easily be carried is gone from the workshop.”
“Micella—the witch’s partner—is gone as well, and her guard was left with no memory of anything amiss,” the second soldier reported, bracing himself for Kadar’s wrath.
Reports came in from throughout the compound. As Kadar feared, one of the wagons and a brace of horses were indeed missing, along with provisions. The bridge leading from the manor’s lands to the main road had collapsed, making pursuit too cumbersome to be useful.
Kadar retreated to his parlor and poured himself another stiff drink. “I’m ruined,” he said to the empty room. His blood witch was gone, fled for gods knew what purpose. His chief advisor lay dead in another room, killed for a staggering betrayal. The glorious plans he had laid were in shambles, and all that remained was to watch the disintegration of his fortune and position.
“Still, there’s the harvest,” he murmured. “And the wine ready to ship. That may win me something, a small amount of Aliyev’s favor for holding up my part of the bargain.”
It wouldn’t be enough to save him. Aliyev would replace him if he didn’t send assassins to kill him, a more likely outcome. Kadar sat heavily into his chair, feeling cold sweat run down his back.
I’ve lost it all.
Panic gradually subsided into anger, which eventually yielded to resignation. Kadar had emptied the decanter of whiskey but felt none the better for it. Curiosity had raised a question he felt compelled to answer.
What was Wraithwind really after?
He should have asked more questions about the damned relic the blood witch claimed to need, should have demanded to know where it was supposedly hidden. Although Wraithwind could have easily lied. Perhaps the witch simply saw an opportunity to flee before Kadar’s fortunes collapsed and managed to get himself and his partner out of harm’s way rather than wait for Aliyev to send assassins.
Still, Kadar couldn’t shake the feeling that he was missing something, that there was more to Wraithwind’s sudden, desperate departure than mere escape. The witch usually groveled, terrified for the sake of his partner and afraid for his own life. But today, Wraithwind’s deference had seemed forced, maybe even insincere.
As if he knew something Kadar did not, as if he had a gambit in reserve to save his own neck. He tried to remember what he had discussed of late with Wraithwind, if one could call their exchanges a “discussion.”
We talked about monsters, and where to send them. The Balance—and he was short with me about what could and could not be done. The Cull, and how to avoid it falling too heavily on people I need for the harvest, tradespeople who provided services upon which I rely.
His eyes widened, remembering a part of the conversation he had dismissed as utter nonsense.
He went on about a bigger monster, one of Colduraan’s get. A “First Being” he called it. Strange name, something about eyes, or seeing. He Who Watches, that’s it.
Kadar staggered to the window, sober enough to realize how drunk he was. “Dear gods,” he muttered aloud. “Did he really believe that rubbish? Is it even possible that he’s gone to summon one of the Ancient Ones from beyond the Rift?”
Chapter Twenty-Nine
“How did you find me?” Jorgeson eyed the blood witch with wary disdain.
“I’m a witch. That’s part of what I do,” Shadowsworn replied with a smirk. “And I come with a letter from Crown Prince Aliyev, ordering your support and protection.” He had a stiff, straight stance and the precise manner of a money changer, or perhaps a lawyer. Hardly what Jorgeson expected from a blood witch of significant power. Shadowsworn would have looked at home among the Guild Masters, with the crisp press of his robes and the careful trim of his dark hair, just beginning to gray at the temples. Canny dark eyes looked out over a sharp nose and an angular face with a pointed chin. Those eyes spoke of cunning and patience, and danger.
Jorgeson blinked the sleep out of his eyes, still out of sorts from being awoken at an abominably early time of the morning by a witch whose arrival he had not expected. Bad enough that he hadn’t shaved in several days, or that his hair fell long enough around his face that he could put it in a queue, or that his clothes showed the wear and dirt of months on the road.
Now in addition to the juvenile indignities inflicted upon him by Spider and Roach, he had his former patron’s high-handed sorcerer to deal with, on an errand unlikely to have anything to do with his own, urgent mission.
“What do you need from me?” Jorgeson growled, taking the letter with a snap of his wrist. He knew that angering a witch of Shadowsworn’s power courted danger. Gods, even Spider and Roach, could kill him if they didn’t fear Aliyev’s wrath. Maybe that’s why Aliyev sent his witch to me. Perhaps I’ve run out of time.
But as he broke the seal on the letter, he knew that if his patron had come to the end of his patience, hiring a common assassin would be easier and less expensive than sending out his blood witch in a carriage suitable for one of the nobility. Which is not going to help us be stealthy at all, not that I can say that out loud.
Aliyev’s brief note got right to the point. Jorgeson read it twice, then looked up, scowling. “So I’m supposed to offer you aid and protection. Have my men assist in any way necessary. None of this tells me why you’re out here in the middle of nowhere.”
“The Solstice is coming, a time for strong magic,” Shadowsworn replied. “I will need the assistance of your blood witches, and I have sent for Wraithwind, the witch who assists Merchant Prince Kadar. Together with a master witch who will join us on the solstice for the ritual, we will put an end to Ravenwood’s troubles, and usher in a golden age for all of Darkhurst.”
Jorgeson remembered all too well the grand promises Thron Blackholt had made to Machison, promises which had either failed utterly or were twisted to his own ends. He repressed a shudder and knew better than to give voice to his misgivings.
“I hope you like sleeping outside,” he said. “Because we don’t have the sort of quarters you’re used to.”
“I’ve made arrangements,” Shadowsworn said smoothly, everything in his manner and tone letting Jorgeson know he was of value only for the lowest assistance. “There’s a manor house along the cliffs a few day’s journey from here. In its heyday, Thornwood was one of the most elegant homes in Darkhurst. We’ll be staying there. It is located auspiciously.” He paused. “Thornwood belonged to a Merchant Prince who did quite well for himself—for a time.”
“He’s permitting us the use of his manor?” Jorgeson asked. After so many months sleeping in his wagon or at inns with mattresses alive with lice and bedbugs, the promise of a soft mattress and the luxury of a hot bath almost made him willing to agree to support whatever schemes Shadowsworn suggested.
The blood witch fixed him with a pitying gaze. “He fell into disgrace, lost his fortune, and hanged himself,” he replied. “Not an uncommon end among the Merchant Princes… or those who serve them.” The witch’s gaze seemed to see down to Jorgeson’s bones, reminding him of his lost status.
Jorgeson reined in his temper with effort. “So the new master of the manor—”
“No one has lived in the house for decades,” Shadowsworn replied. “It’s said to be haunted, by the unfortunate Merchant Prince, and others who died under unpleasant circumstances. Which makes it a well of supernatural energy from which we can draw, increasing its attractiveness.”
The only thing less enticing than spending time with five blood witches was the
idea of squatting in a filthy, haunted ruin. It crossed Jorgeson’s mind that this might be one more torment Aliyev had arranged for him, but he doubted he was important enough to the Crown Prince to warrant that much notice.
“As you wish,” Jorgeson said. “Will Kadar’s man be joining us on the way, or meeting us at the manor?”
“Wraithwind will meet us at Thornwood. Ready your people to move on. We have much to prepare.” With that, Shadowsworn swept past Jorgeson as if he were the lord and not the lackey, followed by the foppish attendants who seemed to serve no purpose except to provide theatrical flourish.
“Damn them all,” Jorgeson grumbled under his breath. He hated witches, starting with Blackholt. While he held the late Lord Mayor Machison in a mix of pity and grudging regard, he felt nothing but revulsion at the memory of Machison’s witch. Thron Blackholt had exceeded the bounds of Jorgeson’s highly elastic morality, and he considered Blackholt as hardly better than the monsters his magic had summoned.
“Damn their fancy names, too,” he added. The overly dramatic pseudonyms affected by the blood witches made it hard not to roll his eyes. “They all sound like the villain in one of those awful plays on the village green,” he muttered to himself as he saw to his horse’s needs. “Do they lie awake at night and try to come up with the most ominous thing they can come up with, just to impress each other?”
Grudgingly accepting that his venting would change nothing, Jorgeson went to tell the others that they would be moving on right after lunch. Since the last, ill-fated battle with the hunters, he had hired on a dozen ruffians of questionable honor as muscle. They might be of help when he had the chance to corner the Valmondes and their friends again. Though running Shadowsworn and the witches upriver to a crumbling mansion meant less time to pursue his quarry—and win back his freedom.
Then again, if Aliyev gave his blessing to Shadowsworn’s little jaunt, he’s going to know damn well that it’ll keep me from hunting the Valmondes, unless they conveniently happen to be heading the same direction.
He found the ruffian guards in the stable, betting at dice. They received word of the new plans with a shrug, unlikely to voice any reaction so long as they were paid in coin and whiskey. Spider and Roach sat near the cook fire, hanging onto Shadowsworn’s every word. What possible use can those two be to a witch with real power, except as sacrifices? he wondered.
More than once, unfortunate witches had met their bloody end at the point of Blackholt’s knives in the dungeons deep below Machison’s palace. Jorgeson decided that after he caught the hunters, he would happily turn over the annoying witches to Shadowsworn or whoever wanted them, just to get them out of his sight.
When this is over, once I’ve run the hunters to ground and given them to Aliyev and cleared the death sentence from my name, I want to go somewhere far away from witches and monsters. I never want to see any of them ever again.
Jorgeson had lost track of the days out here, far from the city, but he reckoned they had about a fortnight until the solstice. He felt weary of the road, tired of his banishment, and as the days passed and they trudged farther from the last known location of the hunters, his doubts grew that he would succeed in satisfying Aliyev’s orders.
He shouted to the hired men to keep up the pace and urged his mount ahead through the cold rain. Aliyev’s note had not officially transferred command to Shadowsworn, but it became clear that Spider and Roach saw the witch as their true master, leaving Jorgeson to order the fighters about and see to the necessities of their journey.
Shadowsworn let his horse slow until he rode alongside Jorgeson as the sun set. “There’s a village coming up. I have need of things from there.”
“You’ve been stopping every few miles to collect leaves and twigs and toads,” Jorgeson replied, letting his sore muscles and headache get the better of him. “What else do you need?”
Shadowsworn regarded him with amusement. “Bodies,” he replied. “Captives—to begin with. Their blood must be fresh for the working. This ritual is particularly powerful. Such magic comes at great cost. And since it would not do to use your blood and that of your men, we’ll have to come by it somewhere else.”
“They won’t just let us walk in there and take their people,” Jorgeson warned.
“That’s exactly what they’ll do, once the others and I have cast our spells,” Shadowsworn answered. “When they wake, they’ll realize the loss, but by then, we’ll be far away with nothing to tie us to the abductions.”
“Except for the screaming captives in the wagon.”
Shadowsworn gave a grim smile. “They’ll be breathing. They will not be screaming. Not yet. I’ll see to that.”
Jorgeson fought instinct to keep from reacting as a chill slithered down his spine. “If your magic doesn’t work, we’ll have to fight our way out.”
“It will work. Hardly the first time I’ve done something like this.” The witch gave Jorgeson a look as if he were a simple child.
“You’re concerned because you believe I am leading you astray from your quest, are you not?” Shadowsworn asked, surprising Jorgeson.
“We serve the same master,” Jorgeson replied carefully. “But I saw nothing in the note offering an extension of the Crown Prince’s expectations. The hunters have nearly been within my grasp more than once. I’ve learned their ways and their abilities. And I’m anxious to put that knowledge to use to bring them to account.”
The blood witch’s lips curled as if privy to Jorgeson’s shaded truths. “You consider our trip to Thornwood a distraction, but I assure you that it will put to rights all that is awry. And when the time is right, it will draw your hunters to us, deliver them and their witches right into your hands, your reward for serving me.”
Jorgeson held himself very still, keeping his expression neutral. Was this a trick? A probe to see where his loyalties lay, a way to further embarrass him in front of Aliyev, or somehow allege further failure? When he dared glance at Shadowsworn, he could not see anything to give away a lie.
“If that is true, then I will double my energies on your behalf,” Jorgeson replied, wondering if the promise was merely a sop offered to assure his cooperation, one that would turn out to be empty words.
“Those who serve faithfully will be rewarded for their efforts,” Shadowsworn said, with a glint in his eyes that made Jorgeson uneasy. “I keep my promises.”
At nightfall, they stopped outside the town, as Jorgeson and his men prepared to do the witch’s bidding.
“I need a boy and a girl—both virgins—a babe that has not reached its first birthday, a strong man and a woman in her childbearing years,” Shadowsworn instructed.
“All from one village? No matter how quiet we are, someone will notice,” Jorgeson protested.
“We have magic to account for that,” the witch replied. “You’ll have no difficulty.”
Jorgeson led the guards to the outskirts of the village. Each of them carried rope in addition to their weapons. Six of them would head into the town to find the victims, then bring them back one at a time to the meeting point, from which the rest of the guards would carry them to the wagon waiting on the road.
“It’s too quiet,” one of the men murmured behind him. “Not natural. Something’s wrong.”
“The hocus said he was gonna hex them,” another whispered. “Maybe he did.”
For his own sake, Jorgeson hoped Shadowsworn’s magic lived up to his promises. He imagined he felt a tingle of power slide over his skin as he entered the village, and wondered how the spell knew to quiet the villagers without putting him and his guards to sleep as well.
The unnatural quiet raised the hackles on the back of Jorgeson’s neck. No dogs barked, no cats prowled the alleys, and no drunks stumbled across the green on their way to sleep off their liquor. Darkened windows in every house seemed all the more suspicious since the hour was not so late as to keep the townsfolk from indoor chores, or relaxing by their fires with a drink and a smoke. No one stirr
ed, and no noise came from any of the buildings.
With hand signals and whispered commands, Jorgeson sent his men searching for the right prisoners. He knew of no way to find captives that suited Shadowsworn’s needs without making a search of every home. He’d assigned each of his six men one of the captives to find, with the understanding that they would share information if they happened upon what one of the others needed.
The first home yielded nothing except a dowdy couple in their middle years, fast asleep in their chairs in front of the fire. The second house had only two old men and an equally old woman inside, but in the third cottage, he found a baby of the right age, quiet in his cradle. He lifted the child as carefully as he could, tensed to expect a shriek if the babe should awake to find himself in a stranger’s grip. Despite his lack of experience handling children of any age, the child remained asleep, merely stretching before settling back down.
He returned to the meeting point and handed off his prize. “We’ve got the woman and man,” one of his guards updated him. “But the virgins—how in blazes are we supposed to know who’s one and who isn’t?”
“Age,” Jorgeson replied absently, watching the slumbering village for any sign that the spell might be waning. “It’s not a guarantee, but no doubt Shadowsworn will be able to tell if we bring him someone sullied,” he added with distaste.
Just as he debated going back after his two errant guards, they returned with their prizes. One held the sleeping form of a boy who looked to be about fifteen years old, while the other had a girl of perhaps twelve summers flung over his shoulder like a bag of flour.
“I reckon these will do,” the guard holding the girl said. “The boy’s got a proxy face, so I doubt he’s a favorite with the ladies. And the girl didn’t strike me as the kind to open her legs early.”
“If he wants someone else, no doubt m’lord mage will let us know,” Jorgeson replied. As much as he wanted to believe Shadowsworn’s assurances that the hunters would deliver themselves into his hands, he knew far too much of Blackholt’s lies and prevarications to trust anything the blood witch said. He noted that the hired men stuck closer to him than before, obviously frightened of the witch. That none of them had bolted, Jorgeson suspected was due to another kind of spell. He wondered if he, too, would find himself bound by magic if he were so foolish as to try to run away. Part of him feared Aliyev’s wrath if he tried such a thing, but more of him feared Shadowsworn’s.
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