Seven Blades in Black

by Sam Sykes

  “Can’t.”

  And his voice.

  I crept through the hall, toward a room hidden at the corner of it. A storage room, strangely untouched but for a skin of dust, its crates of sundries and supplies forming an odd sort of mundane serenity among the suffering and chaos. I only barely noticed Taltho’s bandaged form crouched at the center of it, his back to me, his clawed hands clutching his head.

  “Stop.”

  His voice was so far gone that it was hard to discern emotion, yet whatever fear that lurked inside him was enough to give him an edge of panic as he spoke.

  “Unfair.” He shook his head, as if to shake stray thoughts out of his ears. “Not me.” He hissed angrily at a conversation partner I couldn’t see. “Go away.”

  So… this was new.

  Maybe living a lifetime on only three hours of sleep had finally caught up with him. Maybe the endless waking nightmare of existence had finally delivered him to a new plane between life and death, where ghosts walked as people and people were as shades drifting in and out of the night.

  Or maybe he was just crazy. I don’t know. I wasn’t going to fucking ask him.

  Whatever kept him too distracted to read my thoughts or notice me creeping past his little meditation chamber, I wasn’t going to protest. I found my way through the halls, searching through the scenes of ruin and massacre left behind before I finally found it: the only door in the whole fortress that hadn’t been blown to pieces.

  Thick oak, solid and freshly installed—someone didn’t want whatever was behind it getting out. A heavy lock hung off it—no sign of sigils on it. Lucky me—a wright’s work took time and energy to get around. But a regular lock, I had solutions for.

  Well, only one, really. Kicking it really hard. But it worked.

  The door swung open to a staircase leading into a dark room. I drew my gun, crept down into the gloom. The light of an alchemical globe glowed dimly from the ceiling. I could barely see anything.

  I didn’t even notice them until one of the kids cried out.

  I whirled, saw them quivering in the corner. Beneath the grit and exhaustion painting their faces, fear shone plainly through the twelve children huddling in the corner, clinging together. They let out whimpers, moans, sobs for mothers and fathers who would never answer them.

  These kids had been through hell.

  And I guessed a strange woman kicking down the door with a gun and a sword probably didn’t help that at all.

  “Okay,” I said, holding up a hand. “I know this looks bad, but—”

  I didn’t get a chance to finish. What with someone breaking a stick over my back and all.

  I snarled and whirled around, gun raised, expecting to find Galta or Riccu lurking in the darkness. What I saw, however, was a girl not more than fourteen, anger on her face and a broken stick in her hands. She immediately rushed around me, imposed herself between me and the other children, and raised to take another swing.

  “Listen, I—” I began to say.

  “Stay back!” she screamed, swinging it at me. “Don’t you hurt them or I swear to fuck, I’ll take your head off!”

  “Okay, first of all, language.” I snatched the stick out of her hand, tossed it away. “Second, I’m not here to hurt anyone.” I held up a hand as she pulled herself up defensively. “I’m here to rescue you.”

  The anger and fear began to melt off her face. I was expecting to see gratitude and relief underneath. What I got, however, was confusion.

  “Seriously?” she asked.

  “What do you mean ‘seriously’?”

  “Are you with the Revolution?”

  “No.”

  “The Imperium?”

  “No. Is it that hard to believe I came here on my own to save you?”

  “You just don’t look like any hero I’ve ever heard of,” she said.

  “Yeah?” I growled. “You look too young to be asking to be punched in the mouth, but I guess we’re all surprised today.”

  I wouldn’t have it said that Sal the Cacophony did wrong by kids.

  But I wouldn’t have it said she took any shit from them, either.

  “What’s your name?” I asked the girl. “You look like the oldest.”

  “And you look like an asshole,” she said. “And I don’t give my name to assholes who don’t give me theirs first.”

  I decided I liked this girl.

  “I’m Sal,” I said, lowering my gun. “Sal the Cacophony.”

  She furrowed her brow. “A Vagrant?”

  “Problem?”

  “Since no one else is coming, I guess not. I’m Erel.” She gestured to the rest of the children. “Their names are their own.”

  I nodded. “Tell me what happened.”

  Erel regarded me suspiciously, her hands clenched into fists. Those fists, that tension, was what had kept them all alive, I knew. She wouldn’t release them easily.

  “They came to our township long ago,” she said. “They rented out a few rooms, never bothered anyone. We didn’t know what was happening until…”

  I caught a glimpse of her lip quivering, a wet, shuddering breath. But as soon as the kids behind her began to moan, she drew herself up again, becoming a wall once more. She reached back, laid a hand on someone’s wrist, and squeezed it gently.

  “Two of them grabbed us, pushed us through a glowing circle or something and then we were here. We’ve been here ever since. We don’t know what happened back in Stark’s Mutter.”

  The cut of her words told me that was a lie. She might not know the specifics, but she knew damn well her town wasn’t there anymore. Not as she knew it. And the hardness of her stare told me that now wasn’t the time to tell the truth. The thought of getting home was all that was going to keep these kids going.

  Her name was Erel. She couldn’t have been more than fourteen. And she had to carry everyone on her back already.

  “Have they hurt you?” I glanced over at the children. “Anyone injured?”

  “No.” She shook her head. “I overheard them talking. They said they need all of us intact”—she swallowed hard—“in case one of us isn’t a suitable host.”

  “What does that mean?” one of the kids whimpered.

  “I don’t want to die,” another whined.

  “No one’s dying,” I said. “I’m going to get you out of here.”

  Erel looked like she didn’t believe me. But when I flipped the blade in my hand and offered her the hilt, her expression changed. Steel, she could believe in.

  “You know how to use one of these?” I asked.

  She nodded, taking the blade and giving it a heft. “My mother taught me.”

  “You keep an eye on that window.” I pointed to the thin slit of a window at the top of the room, peering out into the courtyard. “Up these stairs, down the hall, toward the north battlements and into the northernmost tower, you’ll find a portal.” I shot her a look. “You know what a battlement is?”

  She blinked at me. “I’m fourteen. I’ve read books, asshole.”

  I really liked this girl.

  “If I don’t die, I’ll come back for you,” I said. “If I do, or if it looks like I will, you start running. Stab anyone you see that isn’t me. Get through the portal. It’ll take you home.”

  We exchanged a brief nod, curt and professional. She was too young to know how to nod like that. Too young to hold a sword so easily, to stand in front of kids like that, to carry the fears and pains of everyone like that. And even if I got her out of here, she was going to carry that weight for the rest of her life.

  But she didn’t need to hear that now and I didn’t have time to tell her. I placed a hand on the Cacophony’s grip, turned away, and stalked back up the stairs. I had gotten halfway up when she called out.

  “Sal.”

  I looked back at her.

  “If he…” She paused, swallowed. “If you die and he comes after us…”

  A silence hung between us. So vast that all her da
rkest fears filled it.

  “Go for his eyes,” I said. “If you lose the sword, use your fingers. Claw them out. If he grabs you, grab his fingers and twist them until you hear them snap.”

  Erel nodded at me. I nodded back. And I left to go kill a man who had to die.

  FIFTY-THREE

  FORT DOGSJAW

  I’d run it through a thousand times in my head.

  Sometimes, some parts of it were different. Sometimes, there was a great battle between us. Sometimes, it happened when I took him by surprise. But it always ended the same.

  He would be on his knees, in the dirt before me. He would look up at me with those eyes, so bright with the Lady’s light and so full of ambition and cruelty. He would say his last words—maybe he’d beg, maybe he wouldn’t. Then I would put the Cacophony against him. Then I would pull the trigger.

  Then I would watch the light in his eyes disappear. If there was anything left of him.

  I even had the shell picked out. Hellfire. It would be slow, painful, poetic. Then I’d scatter his Dust to the wind and there would be nothing left of him. All his plans and ambitions would disappear on a strong breeze, and as years went by, there would be nothing left of the man who tried to bring down the Imperium but rumors and stories that people barely remembered.

  And they would say that this was what happened when you made an enemy of Sal the Cacophony. They would say she left nothing of you. They would say she looked you in the eyes when she killed you.

  The Cacophony seethed in my grip as I stared at him, the hollow man standing in the center of a circle of corpses beneath a halo of light.

  From here, I could see Vraki’s face illuminated. His hair was a disheveled mess of red and gray, hanging around eyes that had sunken into pits. His cheeks were gaunt and his lips moved in muted words I couldn’t understand even if I heard them. Five nith hounds stood at attention around him, their faces locked upon the great light in the sky, the horrified expressions of the humans they’d stolen their visages from painted in the light.

  He’d been at it for days, I realized, this summoning. He was leaving nothing to chance this time, perfecting the spell, holding his concentration absolute. Stark’s Mutter had been an accident—the host was too unruly, the ritual had gone wrong, there wasn’t enough magic in the air. I didn’t know what had gone wrong.

  But I knew why he took the children.

  His Scrath might reject one of them, but it would adapt a little easier to each new vessel, each new host. And the ones that didn’t make it…

  I couldn’t let myself think of that. Of anything except this moment.

  Vraki the Gate, last of the Imperial Prodigies, had poured his entire life into this moment.

  And now Sal the Cacophony, the girl who once flew like a bird, was about to ruin it all.

  I hoped he appreciated that before I blew his head off.

  I started to walk out. My legs felt cold with each step I took, all the blood rushing to my chest. I only held on to the Cacophony because he wouldn’t let me drop him. We had both been waiting for this, this moment. We had seen this before, in those dark times he spoke to me.

  This gun in my hand, burning.

  This chill in my breath, anticipating.

  The scream in the wind going silent, as though the entire world paused between breaths.

  Long enough for one of them to hear me.

  The nith hound’s human ears twitched. It looked toward me, whirled about, and backed defensively toward Vraki. The others followed suit, their growls a burbling mishmash of human whimpering and bestial snarling.

  When Vraki finally noticed their distress and looked at me, his eyes were wide with shock, his mouth hanging open.

  “Salazanca,” he whispered. “You’re… you’re…”

  “Yup,” I replied.

  The Cacophony burned in my hand as I raised him. And somehow, through the brass of his barrel, I knew he was smiling when I pulled the trigger.

  The shell flew. Vraki let out a cry. Quicker than I could blink, one of the nith hounds leapt up and took the impact full in its chest. Hellfire erupted in a spray of smoke and flame, black gore boiled away in wisps of foul-smelling smoke as the remains of the beast fell and lay smoking on the earth.

  In the clouds above, the halo of light fluctuated, trembled like a timid child. From somewhere deep in wherever the hell it led, something groaned.

  “No! No!” Vraki thrust his hands back out, his eyes erupting with a violet glow as he looked back toward the light with an imploring expression. “I’m sorry! I know that one was your favorite. Please don’t be afraid.” He stole a wild-eyed glance toward me. “Stop, Salazanca! You don’t know what you’re doing.”

  I knew exactly what I was doing. I was aiming my gun. I was drawing back the hammer. And I wasn’t wasting a single word more on him.

  “GALTA!”

  His shriek was answered with a note of the Lady’s song. I pulled the trigger. In the instant before Hellfire exploded into sheets of flame, I could see her, appearing out of the dust like a wraith. Her arms were crossed, her eyes were narrowed, and her face was twisted into a thorny snarl.

  When the flames dissipated, she was still standing. Her clothes were singed and wisps of smoke trailed from the tips of her thorns, but considering I had been hoping for something a little more piles-of-ashes-esque, I was irritated.

  She idly brushed ash from the luckscarf—my luckscarf—that had so generously saved her life. The Lady’s Song filled the air as her Mendmage powers came to her and the few burn wounds that she bore began to heal, red flesh replaced by new, pale skin. The thorns bursting from her forehead clicked together as she knitted her brows in a scowl.

  “Why the fuck am I not surprised,” Galta the Thorn growled.

  “I’d be insulted if you were,” I replied, leveling the gun at her.

  The nith hounds let out a mishmash of gibbering and screams, starting to edge toward me. At a gesture from Vraki, they fell back, huddling around him defensively.

  “She can’t stop us now, Galta,” Vraki said, his voice shrill with panic. “Not while I’m so close.” His eyes were locked on the portal, unblinking. “I can hear her so clearly, Galta. It’s so beautiful.”

  Uncertainty flashed across her face. Vraki had always had the courtesy to at least mask his insanity with ambition, but his voice now was weak, the rasping breath of a madman. And Galta knew who she was working for.

  I’d have told her to get out of the way, to let me finish this clean.

  But she knew she was on my list.

  And I wouldn’t have it said that Sal the Cacophony didn’t keep her word.

  I drew the hammer back. She smiled. And in the second before I could pull the trigger, I heard the song. And she disappeared.

  I searched the dust for her but a moment before I heard something land on the ground behind me. I didn’t even have time to turn around before I felt something rake across my back, tearing open a great gash in me. I staggered away, whirled about with my gun up, and saw Galta there, smiling behind her fingers, my blood wet and glistening on the sword she carried.

  My sword.

  “Oh, don’t look at me like that.” She flicked my life off my blade, even as she drew her own black sword in her free hand. “An opera lover like you has to appreciate the poetry of being killed by your own blade.”

  Now was usually the time for banter, where we’d exchange a few barbs to prove which one of us was going to be the cleverest carcass rotting in the dirt. But I was out of words and I was out of patience and I was out of anything except this cold blood running through my veins and this burning brass in my hand and this little voice in my head that whispered:

  They deserve it.

  I drew the hammer back. She disappeared, simply vanishing into the dust and out of sight. The Lady’s song filled my ears and I heard her land behind me. I twisted out of the way in time, her blade only grazing my side, drawing a red rivulet in my skin. She pouted, or at least
she tried to.

  “Figured it out, huh?”

  She leapt backward, vanished. She reappeared at my side, lashed out. I darted away, watched her disappear and heard her reappear behind me. A blade caught my shoulder, drew a deep gouge, pulled a scream out of my throat. I tumbled forward, out of her grasp, whirled around, and saw nothing but dust.

  Riccu was helping her. Hidden somewhere, he was teleporting her around, pulling her in and out of sight. Had to find him, had to stop her, had to kill Vraki, had to save the kids, had to, to…

  Blood weeping out of my skin, clothes going red. Dust in my mouth, seeping into my lungs. Breathing too hard, not thinking. She had my luckscarf, my sword, more numbers, more magic, more—

  Stop.

  I forced my breath to slow, my blood to cool.

  Listen.

  And my ears to open.

  The Lady’s song, growing fainter. The screaming of the wind. A sudden rush of air and the clicking of thorns.

  Above me.

  I leapt out of the way as Galta came crashing down from above. When she landed, she found only dust beneath the blade. And when she looked up, she found only the butt of my gun coming down.

  The Cacophony found her cheek in the crunch of bone and the spray of blood. Thorns snapped off where its grip struck, sending her body reeling to the earth to lie amid the shattered barbs. She roared, swung the sword up, angling for my belly. I stepped into the blow, catching her arm and pulling it against me. Her thorns sank into my skin, sent blood weeping out. It hurt.

  But hopefully, not as much as what I was going to do.

  I brought the Cacophony down, his burning brass like a gauntlet, and smashed him against her elbow. There was a loud, sickening crack as the bones snapped. The sword fell to the dirt, along with her, as she collapsed to her knees. I drove my boot into her side, sending her rolling across the earth.

  I plucked the sword up, held it out as she found her way to a knee. She rolled her tongue around in her mouth, spat out a pair of teeth onto the red-stained earth. Slowly, she staggered to her feet, her right arm hanging shattered and useless at her side, and turned toward me with eyes glowing violet.