Darkblade Justice: An Epic Fantasy Murder Mystery (Hero of Darkness Book 7)

by Andy Peloquin

  It is a sad day when a quick death is considered a mercy.

  “If you will permit me to undertake my examination of the body, I may find information of more ussse.” Journeyman Rilmine held up a warning hand. “Though I cannot promissse anything. The dead offer only few anssswersss.”

  “Anything is better than what we’ve got now.” Ilanna’s voice was as hard and cold as the ball of ice forming in her gut. “Find out who’s killing these children, Rilmine. Even the slightest hint could point us in the right direction.”

  “Of courssse, Guild Massster.” Rilmine bowed.

  Ilanna strode from the room and stalked down the tunnel toward Master Scorpion’s chambers.

  Ria hurried along beside her. “You can’t wake Tyman right now, Ilanna. He’s old, he needs his rest.”

  “And I need to know what his Scorpions are doing about finding the Watcher-damned Night Petal poison that’s killing these children!” Ilanna’s furious shout echoed down the hard-packed earth corridor.

  “You know Tyman, Ilanna.” Ria spoke in a soothing voice, which only added to Ilanna’s anger. “You know that he’ll send word the moment he finds anything. If you haven’t heard from him, it means there’s nothing to hear. The best thing you can do right now is—”

  Ilanna rounded on Ria, eyes blazing. “Don’t you dare say wait!” Her voice cracked like a whip. “I’m sick of waiting, sick of watching the bodies pile up. You know what’s going to happen if we don’t put a stop to this, Ria! How can you tell me to sit by and do nothing?”

  “Because I know you, Ilanna.” Ria didn’t back down from Ilanna’s anger—she never had—but met it with calm. “I know that once you head down the warpath, there’s no way to stop you. You get so focused on dealing with one problem that you don’t think about all the damage, pain, and chaos you cause.”

  “So this is my fault?” Ilanna snapped. “I’m the problem here?”

  “No, of course not.” Ria shook her head. “But you’re not a Journeyman anymore, not just one more Hawk running the rooftops. You’re the Guild Master, responsible for every man, woman, and child in the tunnels.”

  “Thank you for that reminder!” Ilanna clenched her fists. “And you know what will happen to all those men, women, and children if Duke Phonnis has his way. If I don’t deal with this soon, the Duke is coming for us!”

  “Which is why you need to be calm, to think rationally rather than letting your anger get the best of you.” Ria gripped Ilanna’s shoulders in her strong hands. “There are few people in Praamis that can match your wits and cunning when you are calm, your head clear. That’s when you’re at your best—and that’s how we need you to be. You, Master of the Night Guild, need to think beyond what you’re feeling right now.”

  Ilanna’s jaw clenched. She hated to admit it, but Ria was right. Right now, she felt like drawing her sword and hacking her way through Praamis until she found the murderer. But that would only give Duke Phonnis more ammunition to use against her and the Night Guild.

  She drew in a deep breath, blew it out, then took another.

  “Good.” Ria’s soothing tone no longer irritated her, but helped to dim the fires of anger burning in her gut. “Focus, Ilanna. Think about our next step. We know the killer is using Night Petal, but until Tyman finds the source of the poison, we’re not going to find out who bought it. We know Chantelle left The Gilded Chateau to visit Baronet Wyvern, but we know he didn’t kill her. And the Hunter of Voramis is in the city, but he’s not responsible for the deaths. What comes next? What do those bodies tell you?”

  Ilanna frowned, deep in thought. She started walking—she always thought best when on the move—leaving House Scorpion and moving through the Night Guild tunnels. Ria strode along beside her, hovering, protective, yet allowing her to think.

  “The second child, the one brought in after Arashi,” Ilanna said finally, “what do we know about him?”

  “According to what I’ve heard, he was one of Lady Chasteyn’s Bluejackets.”

  Ilanna stopped and rounded on Ria. “What?”

  The Ghandian nodded. “The Hounds who collected the body said one of the guards mentioned the boy belonging to the House of Mercy, but Lady Chasteyn hadn’t come around to claim his body for burial.”

  Ilanna frowned. “Lady Chasteyn’s Bluejackets?”

  Her mind flashed back to the noblewoman she’d met at the party earlier that evening. From what she’d heard, the noblewoman was renowned for her charitable efforts in the city. But she definitely didn’t look like she was mourning the loss of one of her children. Did she not know? It was possible that she’d been so consumed with the preparations for the celebration that she hadn’t received the news. Or did she just not care?

  But only one of the bodies had been a Bluejacket. The rest had seemed random: a Fox apprentice, Chantelle the courtesan, a riverside dock worker, and a pair of day laborers.

  Why would anyone want them dead? In her experience, people only killed for a select few reasons. Vengeance, a desire she was intimately familiar with. Jealousy and obsession. Greed. Power.

  Some of them made sense for some of the victims, but no motive fit them all.

  If they wanted to kill children, why kill the men? If the men had been their targets, why go after Chantelle? If someone had killed Chantelle out of jealousy, why had they killed children? If someone killed the Fox apprentice to gain power and leverage against the Night Guild, why would they stoop to murdering orphans?

  It just doesn’t add up. Fatigue and anxiety muddled her head, but she forced herself to keep thinking on the problem.

  Some killed to send a message—the gods knew the Night Guild had dropped enough bodies for the purpose of making a statement. So what if the murderer intended to make a statement of some sort? He could choose victims at random because the message wouldn’t be who he killed, but how.

  More than that, she realized. What he did to the bodies after their deaths!

  It came down to that symbol. It had only been present on some of the bodies—the Bluejacket, the Fox apprentice, and the latest victim among them—but that was the only thing to connect the victims. The symbols were meant as a message.

  But what in the bloody hell good is that message if no one can read it?

  She quickly explained her train of thought to Ria, and the Ghandian woman nodded. “Maybe Darreth has found something out about that symbol.”

  “Let’s go.” Ilanna picked up her pace and hurried down the tunnels that led to her office. If anyone could winkle out the meaning of that symbol, it would be Darreth. He’d been the one to discover Lord Torath’s role in the trafficking of innocent girls and Bonedust through Praamis—all thanks to a crude symbol painted onto the barrels of drugs.

  She was less than fifty paces from her office when a commotion in the nearby corridors drew her attention. Serpents, Hounds, and Bloodbears raced down an adjoining passageway, and their furious shouts echoed off the packed earth walls.

  Ilanna hurried toward the corridor and caught sight of Shaw, Master of House Hound. “What’s going on?” she demanded

  “The Hunter of Voramis!” A hint of fear cracked Shaw’s usually calm demeanor. “He’s come for us!”

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Finding the Night Guild proved easier than the Hunter had expected. After leaving Baronet Wyvern’s mansion and The Gardens, he decided his best choice was to take to the rooftops.

  After all, he’d reasoned, if they know I was up there earlier, that’s where they’ll be looking for me.

  He’d found one of the Night Guild’s concealed rope ladders in The Gardens and used it to climb onto the flat roof of an abandoned mansion. Slowly, cautiously, he’d worked his way across the darkened rooftops in the direction of the spot where he’d confronted the Guild assassin. He’d kept to the shadows, using the darkness of the night to conceal his movements. Less than half an hour later, he’d spotted someone slinking across a plank bridge that connected his roof to the next.
A chimney provided ample cover for him to watch the newcomer without being seen.

  Moments later, three more figures had appeared from the darkness to join their companion. Though he was too far away to hear their conversation, he could be fairly certain that he’d found the men he sought. As the assassin had said, the Night Guild ruled the rooftops.

  Now he followed at a safe distance, hanging back to remain out of sight yet keeping within eyeshot. He’d picked up their scents as well. One man stank of turmeric and onions, with a generous helping of dried sweat for good measure. Another smelled of a warrior: leather armor, steel weapons, the oil used for honing and protecting the sword, and a hint of nightshade. The other two had similar scents—wool and leather tinged with lard—but where one reeked of garlic, the other had a lighter, fresher smell that reminded the Hunter of mint oil.

  An odd assortment of odors, but the Hunter had grown accustomed to it. No amount of perfume could ever truly mask the natural scents, those formed over years of contact with metal, fabric, spices, herbs, and plants.

  The smell made it far easier for the Hunter to track the men through the darkness. When they raced across one large, flat warehouse roof, the Hunter had to hang back to avoid being seen. Only once they had leapt to the next building and out of sight did he move from his hiding place and follow them. He kept his senses alert for any sight or sound, but let his sensitive nostrils guide him.

  The trail led toward Vendor’s Block, but turned sharply southward in the direction of a tower that rose high above the surrounding buildings. His gut clenched as he scanned the rooftops and saw no sign of his targets. The wind hadn’t yet carried away their scents, so they’d just passed by. Had they somehow spotted him in pursuit and decided to lay a trap for him?

  Crouching in the shadow of an overhanging roof, the Hunter closed his eyes and let his keen ears search. Up this high, easily thirty paces above the deserted city streets, few sounds filled the night. The occasional rumble of a distant wagon wheel. The faint tromp, tromp of a passing Praamian Guard patrol. The whisper of the breeze that caressed his face. The creak of a rope.

  Rope? The Hunter paid closer attention to that sound. It came from close, ten or twenty paces at most, but he could see no one moving in the shadows. Where could it be?

  He listened until he pinpointed the direction of the sound. It came from a platform above him, around the far side of the square tower.

  Cautiously, he slipped out of the shadows and scrambled up the side of the building. His eyes scanned the darkness for any movement, his ears pricked for even the slightest hint of sound. As he climbed, the creak of the rope grew fainter. He forced himself to keep moving at a slow, steady pace.

  The side of the tower facing him was blank, solid brick walls without a hint of opening, so he followed the rooftop around the side.

  And found himself looking into a window.

  The smell of his targets drifted from within, and this close, he could hear the grunts of straining men echoing in a vast cavern. Careful to keep his face in shadow, he peered through the window.

  The space within was huge, as tall as the tower itself, and descended at least a full floor below ground level. Lanterns burned along the earth-packed walls of the room, bathing the chamber in a soft golden glow. The light illuminated the strangest thing the Hunter had ever seen.

  A maze of braided metal cables, ropes, ladders, bridges, wooden platforms, and steel poles descended from his tower-top perch to the dirt floor far below.

  A wry grin split his lips. Found you! This could only belong to the Night Guild.

  He tracked the movement of the men descending the strange rope-ladder-maze contraption. Two of them slithered downward with a speed that surprised him, while the other two struggled and strained with the effort of carrying their weight.

  Clearly not accustomed to this sort of thing.

  That made sense. The man he’d met on the rooftops had moved with the grace of a fighter, yet he’d tumbled off the rooftop because he hadn’t been aware of the edge. The brute he’d faced in the sewers would never have survived on the narrow plank bridges and tightrope crossings on the rooftops.

  Different groups of men for different tasks. The sort of thieving done on rooftops differed from the sleight of hand required to pick pockets, and assassins relied more on cunning and skill at arms than brute strength. The Bloody Hand had been filled with a loose association of criminals, each gang under the control of the Five Fingers running their business as they saw fit. He’d heard rumors of the Night Guild being far more organized than the Bloody Hand. A smart criminal enterprise—and much of what he’d seen and heard of the Night Guild hinted at intelligent coordination instead of the Bloody Hand’s ruthless might—would divide up their members according to their skills.

  A random thought flashed through his mind. I could use an organization like this in my fight to save the world.

  He discarded it immediately. Criminals rarely cared about more than eking out a living or lining their pockets with gold. It would take someone with a very open mind and forward-thinking mentality to even consider the Hunter’s quest as anything but the ravings of a madman.

  They can’t all be as intelligent as Kiara or Father Reverentus.

  He watched the last two men descending from the rope ladder maze, his teeth grinding in frustration. The ground lay fifty or sixty paces below—it shouldn’t take a well-trained thief that long to get down.

  Finally, their boots touched the hard-packed earth, and the men groaned with the effort of the descent. After a few muttered words the Hunter didn’t catch, they strode toward a pair of massive double doors and disappeared from view.

  The Hunter waited a full minute before moving. On the rope ladder maze, he’d be visible—and vulnerable—if anyone entered the high-ceilinged chamber. But if he wanted to get to the Guild Master, he’d have to risk it.

  He shimmied through the window, grabbed onto a steel pole, and slid down to the wooden platform five paces below. The platform sagged beneath his weight, but he leapt across a narrow plank bridge and seized a hanging rope. A smile split his face as he swung across open space, dropped onto another platform, then scrambled down a swaying rope ladder.

  This is bloody fun!

  But he couldn’t allow himself to get lost in the enjoyment of the challenge. Anxiety set his heart hammering as he descended. His eyes fixed on the ground floor, where he could see open doorways and tunnels set into three of the chamber’s walls—and those huge double doors through which the men had disappeared.

  Relief surged within him as he dropped the last five paces to land on the dusty floor, only to dim a moment later as he realized the soothing, warm glow of the lanterns drove back the shadows of the huge room. He had nowhere to hide. He had to get out of here before someone spotted him.

  He pushed through the double doors and found himself in a tunnel with earthen walls, floor, and arching ceiling. The passage sloped upward at a gentle incline, then disappeared around a corner fifteen paces ahead. Those strange glass-globe lamps set into the wall at consistent intervals provided ample illumination to guide his steps but drove back any hint of shadows.

  His gut clenched. No way to hide in here. His only hope lay in masquerading as one of the Night Guild’s own. He’d just have to hope he could pull off the deception.

  He put a swagger in his step, lifted his head, and moved with the confident purpose of a very important person going about very important business. If he looked as if he belonged, people would be far less likely to question his presence. He caught sight of two men leading three young boys through the tunnels fifty paces ahead of him, but didn’t slow his pace. Nothing to draw unwanted attention to himself.

  He let out a quiet breath as the figures disappeared down an adjoining passage without a second glance in his direction. This might not be as hard as I thought. With an enterprise as large as the Night Guild’s, he doubted everyone knew everyone else. He just had to keep playing the part until�
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  Five paces ahead of him, at the next intersection, a man stepped into view. The same slim, hard-featured man in tailored clothing, with that well-used sword at his hip and the lethal grace of an assassin.

  The man paused, cocked his head, and fixed his gaze on the Hunter. His eyes flew wide as recognition clicked in his mind.

  “The Hunter!” The man gasped, then raised his voice in a shout. “The Hunter is here!”

  The Hunter’s heart sank. Shit!

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Icy fingers crawled down Ilanna’s spine. The Hunter? Here? Her mind raced. Impossible!

  Yet there was no denying the fear and urgency in Shaw’s words. Before she realized it, she found herself striding after the racing Hound, Ria’s footsteps echoing behind her.

  There, fifty paces down the tunnel, stood a man dressed in all dark grey. He had a hard face with heavy, hooded brows, a crooked nose, and scars on his cheeks that curled his upper lip into a perpetual sneer. The face of a killer.

  Thirty men and women from House Bloodbear, House Serpent, and House Hound surrounded him, weapons drawn. Tension rose off her people in tangible waves. None of them wanted to be the first to make a move; all knew the Hunter by reputation and a few—including Journeyman Tassat, the Serpent nearest the intruder—had faced him directly.

  Ilanna strode toward the Hunter. The legendary assassin stood silent and still, arms folded over his chest, an island of calm amidst a sea of nervous fear. His eyes roamed over the men and women arrayed in front of him as if sizing them up, and he made no move toward the sword on his hip or the dagger—with its ornate transparent gemstone—in his belt. The wry smile on his face was doubtless intended to convince the Night Guild he found them far less intimidating than they’d hoped.

  Journeymen made way for Ilanna, who strode to meet the Hunter with a false fearlessness in her stride. A tremor ran through her gut at the thought of facing down this man who had killed so many—hundreds, if the tales were to be believed. Yet she moved on with a determined step. He stood in her Night Guild, and she’d be damned if she let him slaughter her people without first making an attempt to speak with him.