Seven Blades in Black

by Sam Sykes

  You can see where this was fucking going.

  As it was, I had just enough clear thought left for the grim realization that I was ten miles behind in a race I hadn’t been awake to see the start of.

  Riccu the Knock was my only way to Vraki and he was somewhere in a city that Alothenes knew much better than I did. Add to it, he could be any creature present on the streets—that woman laughing and sipping wine, that man vomiting in an alley, even that dog eating said vomit. He would find a suitable shape, find his quarry, and approach him before Riccu even knew he was being followed. Alothenes knew Lastlight, knew how to find people and knew how to take them.

  But I knew Riccu.

  Alothenes knew Ricculoran, the nervous, pensive Doormage who spent most of his time cringing from women and hiding in the Cathama libraries. He didn’t know Riccu the Knock, the Vagrant who opened doors for killers and sat back and watched, the eagerness of his grin splashed with red as he watched murderers spill the blood he was too cowardly to spill himself.

  But I did.

  I knew the hatred that burned behind those cowering eyes. I knew that he never cringed away from a woman without scowling hatefully at her back. I knew what he craved. I knew what he feared.

  And so my eyes were on the ground.

  I wasn’t looking for Riccu the same way an exterminator doesn’t go looking for rats—they hide, they scurry, they don’t come out unless no one’s around. You want to get a rat, you find its nest.

  Alleys were too open; anyone could get to them. But buildings would be too hard to get to in the event of an escape. Riccu would look for somewhere out of sight, yet with no locks or doors to fumble with. My eyes searched the canals for docked boats with too big cabins or shallow sections big enough for a man to walk into or…

  There.

  Beneath a bridge, I saw a doorway. I followed a stone staircase down and into the shadows below. Canal water lapped at my boots as I entered, splashing into a lightless corridor where the perfumed air quickly turned stale and the stale air quickly turned stagnant.

  And when I found the red chalk square drawn on the wall of the tunnel, I smiled. It must have enraged Riccu’s precious sensibilities to have to draw his portal in a sewer.

  Riccu, like a lot of Doormages, is resentful. The Lady Merchant gave them an art that was already less flashy than conjuring fire or moving things with your mind. Not that teleportation wasn’t useful—Doormages were crucial for the movement of the Imperium’s troops—but it required a lot of setup. For anything greater than a short-range burst of movement, they needed to prepare their magic by laying out exactly where they wanted to leave and exactly where they wanted to come out; otherwise they ran the risk of appearing in, say, a wall of rock.

  It was an effective art. But not a very romantic one. Riccu had always loathed that. I always wondered if that was why he used red chalk to draw his doors.

  This one, a series of small runes arranged in a square on the wet stone, was big. Big enough for two people or one very large one to get through—Riccu was going to use it to bring Calto back, I wagered. And wherever “back” was, I would find Vraki there.

  I had to take a breath to keep my heart from racing.

  The chalk hadn’t turned to ash. Riccu hadn’t used the portal yet—he just wanted it ready for when he had to leave. Which meant he was still here in Lastlight. And I still had a chance to catch him.

  But how?

  Waiting for Riccu wasn’t an option; if Alothenes didn’t find him first, he’d be back with backup I was in no shape to handle.

  I had to somehow figure out how to lure a guy who could step through empty space to flee to his magical portal that led to a crazed, even-more-magical mass murderer and grab him before he could open said portal and either escape to said mass murderer or bring said mass murderer through.

  To my drug-addled brain, this made perfect sense.

  “You there.”

  You ever have a moment where your stomach twists into knots, your heart beats a little faster, your breath comes a little shorter, but your head is on fire and your brain just had a very bad idea that it thinks is good?

  “Wait just a fucking minute.”

  Yeah, that.

  I instinctively crouched down behind the bridge’s wall and stayed there a good ten seconds before I realized they weren’t speaking to me.

  If I had to hazard a guess as to who they were speaking to, I’d put money on the very tall naked guy standing in the middle of the road.

  Calto the Hardrock did not look tired. He had to have been following me without sleep, yet he didn’t have so much as a dark ring under his eye. Fatigue didn’t even register on his stony face. He didn’t seem particularly bothered by the burn marks on his flesh or the fact that he was nude. And he certainly wasn’t bothered by the three red-and-white-clad peacekeepers huddled around him, glaring.

  The opposite could not be said to be true.

  “Just what the fuck do you think you’re doing here coming into Lastlight with no fucking pants on?” One of them, a shorter fellow with a big hand cannon to compensate, thrust his weapon into Calto’s face. “Did they not stop you at the gate?”

  They probably tried.

  Calto ignored the hand cannon, did not even look at the guard thrusting it. “I am looking for a woman,” he rumbled.

  “I mean, yeah,” the guard replied, glancing south of his waist. “I guess you would be. And I’m sure, if you’ve got coin, you’ll find someone to indulge you in some other fucking city. We don’t let anyone in this place without pants on.”

  Calto stared over the man’s head, looking for something across the streets. “Your laws do not concern me.”

  “Well, as it happens, a giant motherfucker walking with his cock flopping around definitely concerns me.” The guard tapped the barrel of his hand cannon against Calto’s massive chest. “And what concerns me, concerns Two Lonely Old Men, so unless you’d like to have the most powerful Freemaker in the Scar after you, you’ll—”

  That wasn’t a bad threat, honestly. Few people defied Two Lonely Old Men and lived, Vagrant or otherwise. If the guard had finished it, Calto might have rethought his approach.

  The guard didn’t finish his threat, of course.

  It was kind of hard to.

  What with Calto’s hand wrapped around his head.

  You’ve probably felt it before. After a glass breaks in a crowded public house. Before two people dare each other to say something they’ll regret. The space between someone saying “I love you” and someone else not saying it back. That tense moment of silence, the kind that stretches a single second into an hour, where everyone’s ready to bleed and is just waiting to see who’s going to do it first.

  That’s what I felt when Calto lifted the screaming, flailing guard off his feet.

  And everyone else could feel it, too. The guards at Calto’s sides aiming their autobows at him. The snipers on the rooftops drawing down on him. The Revolutionary squadron on the other side of the canal reaching for their gunpikes. The Imperial officers on a café porch leaning forward, the Lady’s song in their ears.

  Things were about to get properly fucked.

  Which would have been a good reason to leave, honestly. The fact that Calto, an invincible murder machine masquerading as a man, was searching for me would be another good one. I could probably think of a few dozen reasons not to be there, really.

  And only one reason to stay.

  I needed to find Riccu.

  And I bet you know which reason I listened to.

  The Cacophony seethed in my hand, sensing my intent and approving with a warm grip as I raised him up and aimed him at Calto’s head. My vision was still hazy, my mind foggy, as I drew on him.

  Through the corners of my eyes, through the black rings circling my vision, I could see them: the laughing people, their happy homes, their sloshing wine. Through the fog inside my head, I tried to imagine what would happen to them if I pulled this trigger.
Through a long, cold breath, I heard the laughter turn to screams; I smelled the wine turn to blood.

  I heard them. From somewhere far away, far ahead, in a dark place filled with ash and blood, I heard them. I heard their pleas to lower the gun. I heard all the curses they’d lay on me for pulling the trigger. I heard all the weak apologies and lame justifications I’d offer after it was done. I heard the screaming, I heard the weeping, I heard the breathless whispers to gods that didn’t exist.

  I closed my eyes.

  And I whispered my reply.

  “Eres va atali.”

  I raised the Cacophony. I stared down the sights. I put them right between Calto’s eyes. And I shouted.

  “HEY, HARDROCK!”

  He looked up. He saw me first, then my gun. He breathed a word.

  And I pulled the trigger.

  Discordance screeched toward him, took him square in the face. The wall of sound erupted in a shrieking symphony, casting the guard from Calto’s hand, the other two into the water and Calto himself into the broad face of a building. He disappeared through the wall in an eruption of slate shards and shattered timber, a cloud of dust bursting from the hole he had just vanished down like the dying gasp after a great beast’s last meal.

  The dust hung in the air like a funeral shroud. Through the silence, I could hear voices whispering.

  “Did she just say ‘Hardrock’? Is that him? Is that the—”

  “—she’s got a gun! Is that… Oh fuck. Get the guards—”

  “—Imperial trick, it must be. They’re fucking—”

  “—I told you letting the Revolution in would end in—”

  And then I couldn’t hear them. A note of perfect silence hung in the air. And through it, I could hear the Lady’s song.

  Stone shuddered and groaned as Calto came bursting out of the hole. People scattered and fled screaming at the sound of his roar. The earth shook beneath his feet as he saw me across the bridge and came charging toward me.

  And I knew it was time to run.

  The fog left me with each gasp as I went tearing off down the bridge. And by the time I could appreciate what I had just done, I couldn’t stop. The earth shook under my feet with each step he took. My bones rattled as he closed the distance between us with each great stride. I could feel the horrific stillness of the street as he leapt and a great shadow grew over me.

  With a cry, I lunged forward, falling into a tumble to scramble to the other side of the canal. I whirled onto my ass, gun up, and aimed, just in time to see Calto come crashing down.

  And then the bridge disappeared.

  The peoples’ screaming was nothing compared to the great roar of stone as it broke beneath him, shattering into fragments and disappearing into the canal. Water erupted, washed over me in a spray of froth. I stared, along with dozens of other wide-eyed and breathless people, at the hole where the bridge had just been.

  Believe it or not, that had actually been easier than I thought.

  See, Riccu was a coward. He wouldn’t compromise his safety for anyone, not even for Vraki. And there was nothing like a rampaging Siegemage to compromise safety. Amid heightened tensions, increased security, and the general feel of what-the-fuck-just-happened-ery, he’d flee to his portal and I’d catch him there. There’d be some damage, I knew, but if all I lost taking out Calto was a broken bridge and a hole in a building, I’d call that a good trade.

  I honestly hadn’t expected it to work as well as it did.

  “Halt!”

  Of course.

  I looked up into the glistening blades of a dozen gunpikes aimed down at me. The Revolutionaries surrounded me, weapons drawn. At their head, a man wearing an officer’s badge and carrying a hand cannon narrowed his eyes on my very distinctly Imperial white hair.

  “What Imperial plot is this?” he muttered.

  I opened my mouth to… do what? Warn them? Seemed a touch late for that. A touch too little, too. The gunpikes rattled as they prepared to fire.

  “STOP!”

  He looked tired, his uniform was filthy, and he came staggering up like a drunk three days into a weeklong bottle, but the Revolutionaries held their fire as Cavric pushed between them.

  “Stop!” he rasped. He gestured to himself, breathing heavily. “Cavric Proud. Low Sergeant of the Fifty-Sixth Cadre. Out of Lowstaff.”

  “You’re a long way from home,” the officer said. “And in my way. If you’ll pardon me, Low Sergeant Proud, I’ve a city to keep clean of Imperial filth.”

  “She’s not Imperial!” Cavric threw his hands out, stepping in front of me. “Please, whatever you’ve been told, this city has no Imperials here! I swear!”

  My face screwed up at his words. I wondered what they had been told to justify this much firepower in one area. The officer exchanged a glance with his soldiers.

  “Keep your steel on them. Be wary.”

  He crept to the edge of the ruined bridge as Cavric moved to help me up.

  “Sal,” he whispered in my ear, “it’s bad. I asked around. The Cadre here has been given information that the city is crawling with Imperial spies.”

  My heart caught in my chest. Were they talking about Alothenes? Had he lied to me? Were there more?

  “These people are in danger, Sal,” Cavric continued, gesturing to the citizens across the bridge. “We’ve got to get them out before—”

  “No sign of the huge brute.” The Revolutionary officer peered over the edge. “How does a creature that big disapp—”

  There was a blur of gray. The officer swayed on his feet, like someone had just slapped him. I had just enough time to see the fist-sized stone lodged in his face before he teetered and fell over the edge of the canal.

  And Calto came vaulting over.

  “VAGRANT!” one of the Revolutionaries shrieked. “THE FUCKING IMPERIALS ARE USING VAGRANTS! OPEN FIRE!” He turned to one of his comrades. “GET THE FLARE!”

  “Wait!” Cavric tried to scream, tried to rush toward the soldiers.

  Too fucking late. Too fucking quiet.

  His voice was lost in the chorus of gunfire as they turned their weapons onto Calto. Their charges sang an ugly song, sinking into his skin in bloodless, smoking holes. More missed entirely, bullets shrieking across the bridge to tear holes in citizens who fell, screaming, and did not rise again.

  One of the Revolutionaries fumbled with a thick-barreled hand cannon. Cavric lunged, his hands falling well short as the soldier raised it to the sky and pulled the trigger. A blazing flare streaked into the sky and exploded in a tiny red sun.

  And, over the walls, Revolutionary sirens answered.

  Fuck.

  I seized Cavric by the shoulder, pulled him toward me.

  “Get as many people as you can out of here,” I snarled as I hastily loaded the Cacophony. “And make sure you stay the hell out of my way.”

  “What for?” he asked. “What are you going to—”

  “HARDROCK!”

  I screamed. The towering Siegemage craned his head toward me. Across his impassive gaze, the barest flicker of hatred flashed.

  And I started running.

  The cries of the Revolutionaries became a panicked chorus, all thought given to formless screaming that ended in the crunch of bone and spatter of blood as Calto plowed through them.

  I didn’t dare look back.

  I couldn’t. I couldn’t see the blood and pulped skulls beneath his feet. I couldn’t afford regret, fear. I had to keep running. I had to find Riccu.

  Or else this, and everything, was for nothing.

  “Out of the fucking way!” I had the Cacophony in hand, firing off shots into the air as I ran toward a crowd of screaming people on the canal. Discordance shrieked. Hellfire blazed. “Sal the fucking Cacophony has come to town, assholes! You want to die?”

  Some of them heard the name and ran. Some of them had seen the carnage and already started running. Most, I think, just ran from the crazed woman running down the street firing explo
sions into the air.

  So long as they were running, I didn’t fucking care.

  I needed a lot of room, a lot of noise, and as few of them dead as possible. I had two of those covered. They fled screaming into alleys, ducking into shops, diving into the canals, all too happy to give me a clear path to run.

  Unfortunately, that also gave the crazed, angry giant chasing me plenty of room to follow in my wake. His footsteps nearly knocked the breath from my lungs as he closed in on me, the stones shaking on the pavement. He’d close on me before too long. But that was fine. He was bigger, faster, but unwieldy. I could maneuver around him, over bridges, through alleys he couldn’t follow. So long as the path remained clear and…

  I heard a shriek overhead.

  I heard the crackle of electricity.

  And the Lady laughing a long and merry song of you-didn’t-actually-think-this-was-going-to-work-did-you-you-dumb-fuck.

  I caught a flash of the Krikai bird’s amethyst-tinged wings just before I saw the spark of azure electricity. A thunderbow’s bolt launched, a jagged streak of lightning screaming down from on high to strike the stones. I leapt backward, shielding my eyes with my arms as thunder cracked and bright blue bolts sparked in front of me.

  Fuck, fuck.

  I was an idiot to think the Imperium wouldn’t take notice of two Vagrants fighting—they had giant birds, for fuck’s sake. But there would be time for regret, and more creative curse words, later. As soon as I heard the thunderbow’s crackle, I knew I had to go.

  I whirled, saw Calto rampaging toward me, face empty and spattered with blood. I swallowed hard, heard the Krikai’s cry louder in my ears as its rider brought it swooping down behind me. No time to plan, no time to think, no time to realize what a stupid idea this was.

  I ran.

  Calto’s eyes widened, surprised to see me running toward the rampaging Siegemage who wanted to kill me, but it was short-lived. I bent low, took a sharp breath. He realized what I was going to do, swung his fists high above his head. I leapt into a slide, aiming between his legs. His fists came crashing down, splintering the stone behind me as I slid between his legs, scrambled to my hands and knees, and crawled away from him.