Seven Blades in Black

by Sam Sykes

  The Lady’s Song rang out. The blood dripping from her mouth ebbed off. She winced at the sounds of bones realigning beneath her skin and raised her hand, thorned fingers twitching.

  “I can’t die,” she growled. “Not here. Not while we’re so close.”

  “I’ll take that bet,” I replied, raising the Cacophony at her.

  “Vraki is right, Sal. This is the only way to save the Imperium. You never understood that.” She raised her black sword in her newly repaired hand. “And you never will.”

  I clicked the hammer back.

  “I can live with that.”

  Heavy limbs rushing awkwardly across the earth. The baying of a voice in perpetual agony. I heard the beast’s charge a moment before I heard it leave the earth. I whirled, gun aloft, just in time to see the nith hound’s horrified man-face plummeting toward me.

  It crashed upon me, driving me into the earth and pinning the gun against my chest. Through the frenzy of movement as its jaws gnashed at me, barely held back by my sword, I saw the horror locked in the face of the man whose face the monster wore. Fine-boned, clear blue eyes—an Imperial.

  Hopefully he wouldn’t mind.

  I angled the Cacophony toward the beast’s belly, pulled the trigger. Hoarfrost shot out, a jagged icicle punching through the creature’s emaciated torso. It stiffened, a sheen of frost coating its rubbery black hide before it collapsed onto its side, human face still frozen in gaping terror.

  I scrambled to my feet and whirled to see Galta already vanishing, carried off by Riccu’s magic. Before I could even begin to guess where she’d gone, though, the sound of baying filled my ears once more.

  And I started running.

  The remaining three nith hounds closed in on me, jaws gnashing and ungainly limbs pawing and voices filled with human suffering. One, I could take. Three—along with who knew where the fuck Galta was—meant I couldn’t stop.

  I rushed through the courtyard, trying to ignore the wailing of their voices. Flashes of light and song assailed me from the corners of my eyes. When I darted left, Galta appeared out of nothingness to lash at me with her blade. When I pivoted right, the hounds leapt, jaws gnashing.

  I almost didn’t notice until I saw the wall looming before me.

  I was being herded.

  They were pushing me into a corner, where I wouldn’t have room to escape, where they could finish me off. But through a sidelong glance, I could just barely see what they were trying to push me away from.

  The stables, long abandoned, stood at the other edge of the courtyard. Its interior was shrouded in shadow. And through the darkness, I could just barely see the dim violet glow of two eyes staring at me.

  Hello, Riccu.

  I drew my gun up, aimed. I shut out their baying. I shut out the thunder of my heart and the panic in my breath. I shut out everything but the sound of the hammer clicking and the delighted sound of the Cacophony as I pulled the trigger.

  And my very last Hellfire went shrieking out.

  It disappeared into the stable, went dark for a single, heat-choked breath.

  And then it exploded. The corral erupted into flame. Great gouts of fire burst out of the thatched roof. In an inferno bright enough to make Galta’s little runes seem like sputtering candles, the stables went up. And if you squinted, you could just barely make out the man with the limp hauling his paralyzed body out with the strength of one arm, screaming through numb vocal cords and trying desperately to put the flames out with limbs that wouldn’t work.

  Galta reappeared above me, falling out of the sky in a flailing, shrieking heap. His magic had ended too soon. She hadn’t expected to reappear there. She tumbled onto the dirt, rolling onto her back. The nith hounds turned, stared at her, instincts suddenly confused at her appearance.

  And I was ready.

  I turned, ran toward them, jammed my sword through one of their spines and left it lodged there. Its squeal of pain drew the attention of the other, who stared at me with terrified human eyes as I brought the Cacophony down upon its skull, sending it crashing to the ground with the sound like a bag of vegetables hitting the earth.

  Galta had just gotten to her feet in time to see me tackle her back to the ground.

  I ran, leapt atop her. I ignored the pain of her thorns punching into my leg as I straddled her. I ignored the curse she spat as she looked up at me. I ignored everything but the amused burning of the Cacophony in my grip as I brought him down.

  In a spray of red. In a splinter of bone. In a steaming, seething snarl.

  Over and over. I smashed the butt of the gun against her face, splintering thorns, breaking bones, painting bruises and blood across her skin. She struggled, flailing beneath me, thorns punching through my clothes, my skin, legs bleeding as she tried to claw me off her.

  I didn’t care. I couldn’t feel pain. And I couldn’t stop. The Lady’s song was rising, Galta’s wounds were closing almost as fast as I put them on her. The only way to stop her would be to beat her until she couldn’t think anymore.

  I couldn’t feel her clawing at me. I couldn’t feel the shock run down my arm or the blood splash against my face. I couldn’t feel anything but the mechanical motion of my arm bringing the Cacophony up and down until she stopped struggling beneath me.

  And Galta the Thorn lay still beneath me.

  The feeling returned to me slowly—the blood weeping out of me from a dozen cuts, the exhausted agony of my limp arm, the weight of the gun in my hand—as I rose to my feet. With my free hand and one foot, I pulled the luckscarf—my luckscarf—off of her and put it on.

  It was stained and bloody, but that would come out. It was torn from her thorns poking through it, but I could stitch it. All I needed from it now was the familiar crinkle of paper as I reached into the hidden pocket and pulled out a square of parchment and the little piece of charcoal.

  I opened the list. I looked down it. I found her name and I put the charcoal against it.

  Galta the Thorn.

  I stalked through the dust, pulled Jeff out of the nith hound’s corpse, and shouldered him. I sheathed the Cacophony and took a moment to survey the carnage.

  I heard a groaning from across the courtyard, wandered over toward the inferno that had been the stables. I found Riccu, his skin red and blackened, his clothes in charred tatters, clambering to one knee. It was all he could manage, the rest of his body completely paralyzed.

  Lucky him. He wouldn’t even feel this.

  “Sal,” he gasped through numb lips as he looked up at me. “Please. The others… I never meant… I didn’t want…”

  “Just answer me one thing, Riccu,” I said. “If you had a chance to do it all again, would you?”

  A coward. A cruel man. A Doormage. Riccu had never been a good liar.

  And when he looked at me, his mouth was set into silence. And he didn’t blink.

  “Yeah.” I jammed the blade through his back. “Same.”

  Riccu the Knock.

  I stared at the name, a collection of faded ink smudges, and looked to the body, a still and unmoving carcass on the cold earth. In my head, it was more dramatic than this. He was still a pair of glimmering eyes in the shadows, a frightened whimper hidden in that dark place I went to sometimes. In my head, he was a monster, like they all were.

  I couldn’t tell you what I had expected to feel when I looked down at that sack of meat.

  But I didn’t feel it.

  Not yet.

  And, as if in response to that lack of feeling, something started burning at my hip. I could feel the Cacophony grinning through his sheath. And when I pulled him out, he burned in my hand, as if to say…

  We aren’t done.

  I looked to that figure at the center of the courtyard, gaunt and weary features painted sickly by the light, his arms stretched to the sky and his lips twitching. I looked to that halo of light overhead, how big it had yawned open, how deep its groan was when it shuddered.

  No. We weren’t done.
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  I heard the rasp of my own breath, the drag of my feet across dirt as I limped across the courtyard. I flipped the chamber of the Cacophony open, reached into my satchel. Five shells greeted me—all that remained. One Sunflare. Three Discordance. One Hoarfrost.

  Hoarfrost.

  Not as poetic as Hellfire, was it? But killers can’t be choosers.

  I plucked three out, chambered them, flipped it shut.

  I could just barely make out Vraki’s face. His eyes opened wide, the light inside them beaming brightly. His face split open with his smile. And overhead, as if to return it, the halo of light began to shudder, twist, and writhe, a lover driven mad by the whispers of her suitor.

  It glowed brighter, lighting up the sky like a violet sun. Its groan became a shrill, echoing song, overwhelming the sound of the wind screaming and my breath rasping. Behind the light, I could see a shadow blooming, something immense reaching down from somewhere far away, just as Vraki reached up to touch it.

  I could just barely make out his lips twitch in a single word.

  “Yes.”

  And then I went and ruined it.

  Discordance shrieked out. There was a moment of silence. And then, the eruption.

  He glanced up in time to see me pull the trigger, threw a hand up. The air shimmered, glowed as he tried to erect a shield in the half-second he had to react. Enough to save him a messy death, not enough to save him from the second shot.

  Discordance struck him, exploded in a wail that rendered even the great song of the portal mute. Vraki shrieked, flying through the air to skid across the dirt.

  He staggered to his knees. And when he looked up, a dying light painted despair across his face.

  The halo of light overhead twitched and shuddered. Like a mirror, cracks began to appear across its surface, etched with great black scars. Its song became a bleating, warbling sound, as though it—whatever made it—was confused. A moment later, the song became a scream, something desperate and terrified. The light deepened from a bright violet to an angry crimson.

  “No,” he gasped. “No, no!” He found his feet, started stumbling toward it, hand outstretched like he could save it if he just reached far enough. “Wait! I’m coming! I can fix this! I can help you—”

  I was almost insulted that he didn’t notice me.

  At least until I smashed the Cacophony against his nose.

  He fell back to the ground with a cry. And when he looked up again, my gun was in his face.

  “Sal,” he whispered, staring past me. “What have you done?”

  I had imagined what I’d feel when I finally killed him. Sometimes I thought I’d laugh and dance over his corpse. Sometimes I thought I’d spare just a morbid smile once the light left his eyes. And sometimes, I thought I’d just sit there, staring at him through numb eyes.

  I don’t know why I felt like crying at that moment.

  “You can’t be serious,” I said. “All this time, all these years later, that’s what you say to me?”

  “I can still save this.” He staggered to his feet, started limping toward the halo. “He’s in pain, but I can still save him. It… I took every precaution to…”

  I caught him by the shoulder, shoved him back to the earth. He didn’t even put up a fight. He was so light in my hands, falling down to his rear like he was just a little kid. I put the gun in his face again and he didn’t even notice. His eyes were on that portal, his face twisting at its shriek.

  “Can’t you hear him?” he whispered. “He was speaking to me. The last one was too rebellious, too angry. But this one, this one was going to work.” His voice trembled, on the edge of tears himself. “We were going to save the Imperium.”

  Where was the monster I was supposed to kill?

  Where were his gloating cackles? Where were his spewed curses? Where was the begging, the regret, the defiance, the anything? I didn’t recognize this disheveled creature, this whimpering voice, this desperate stare from the man in the dark place.

  “She sent him herself,” he said. “I spoke to her. It was going to be perfect. No Barter this time.” He shook his head. “This one… this one was going to be a gift, her favorite son. He has to be welcomed…” He got to his feet again. “I have to help him.”

  I stood in front of him. I put the gun up. I couldn’t figure out why my hand was shaking, why my voice trembled in my throat.

  “You stop right there,” I growled. “And you look me in the eye before I kill you.”

  And for a moment, he did. He looked away from the portal. He looked directly into my eyes. And I looked into his.

  And I saw that they were empty.

  The final insult. The last scar he would ever give me. I was here, after all this time chasing him, ready to kill Vrakilaith, Vraki the Gate, the Imperium’s last Prodigy, architect of the Crown Conspiracy and the man who took the sky from me…

  And he was too insane to know it.

  I hit him.

  I don’t even know how. I didn’t even feel my arm do it. I just felt the shock run through my hand when I smashed the Cacophony against his face.

  He recoiled, touched his face, and drew back blood. He looked at me with confusion on his features, unsure what had just happened.

  And I hit him again.

  And this time, I felt something. Not my arm, not my muscles moving, not even the gun in my hand. I felt something hot behind my eyes. I felt something hard between my teeth. I felt something reaching down into a cold place inside me and twisting.

  And I just hit him again.

  “I have to complete the spell.” He staggered backward, then tried to push past me. “I have to finish it. I—”

  I hit him. Bone crunched. He fell to his knee, tried to get back up.

  “It took so much time, so much effort. She told me exactly what I needed to do and—”

  I hit him. Blood blossomed. He groaned out of a mouthful of broken teeth.

  “Please. Please. This is the only way. I have to do this for her. She trusted me to—”

  And I just kept hitting him.

  Until my arm went numb. Until the blood left my body. Until there was nothing left in me but to raise the gun and put the barrel of it against the ruin of a face that looked back up at me. And even then, through those empty eyes, Vraki just whispered.

  “No.”

  I followed his gaze to the portal overhead. Black veins mapped it, like cracks across a glass pane. Its light was bloodred and grotesque. Its song was weak and dying until it finally ebbed to a soft, pitiable moan.

  “Sal,” he gasped. “You ruined it. I can’t… I can’t save him now.” He swallowed blood, held out shaking hands. “She was going to give him to me, to hold the door open so she could… she could…”

  A tear slid from his eye, cut a clean path through the blood staining his cheek.

  “Her song,” he sputtered, “was so beautiful.”

  I could tell myself, at least, that I had taken that away from him.

  I turned back to him. I closed my eyes. I pulled the hammer back.

  “Sal…”

  I heard a voice. It wasn’t his.

  “Don’t.”

  I opened my eyes. Vraki wasn’t there anymore. On her knees in front of me, smiling behind those big glasses of hers, was someone else. Without ever breaking that smile, Liette looked up at me, down the barrel of the gun I had pressed against her forehead and asked in that breathless whisper of hers:

  “Are you really going to shoot me this time?”

  I let out a sound—a cry, a curse, I didn’t know. I staggered backward, almost dropping the Cacophony. Liette looked back at me with a grin growing too wide, a face stretching too long. Her body grew broad and dark, her limbs twisted into branches, her skin hardened into bark. When I blinked again, there was a tree there. She was gone.

  And so was Vraki.

  “NO!”

  I rushed toward the tree, searched it. The bark was rough beneath my fingers, the decayed reek of
its dead branches thick in my nose. I hammered it with a fist, hurled a scream against it when that didn’t work.

  “No, no, no!” My voice sounded pathetic as I clawed at the tree, but I didn’t care. “I was so close! I was so…”

  My voice trailed off as I became aware of a chill seeping into my bones and the reality of my situation sank in just as swiftly. I turned around and beheld the thousand dead trees sprawling out before me.

  Taltho.

  How the fuck did I forget him? Did I just assume the sound of a battle going on wouldn’t stir him from his freaky little reverie? Had I gotten that stupid?

  Easy, I cautioned myself. Getting mad wasn’t going to help now.

  I looked around me. The courtyard was gone. The scars of ice and fire had vanished. In all directions, a lonely forest of shadows and black trees stretched. The wailing of the wind had disappeared, leaving only the distant call of a crow somewhere far away.

  My eyes swept about in a frenzied panic, but I saw nothing. No Liette. No Vraki. Nothing but dead trees and cold mist and whatever else the fuck Taltho wanted me to see. He was in my head now, tearing my thoughts apart and planting these black trees in their stead. Meanwhile, Vraki could be getting away, could be coming toward me with a knife, could be…

  Stop, I told myself. Stop, stop, fucking stop. Control your breathing. Listen.

  But all I heard was the lonely sound of trees aging, of a dying crow’s song. I couldn’t trust my senses. Everything smelled real, felt real, tasted real in my mouth. I didn’t know how to break it, short of killing him. But he could be anywhere. Nowhere. He’d lurk in the shadows until I stumbled into a fire or he could creep up behind me with a knife or… or…

  Couldn’t think. Couldn’t think of what to do, what to trust. Couldn’t trust my eyes, my ears, anything. Couldn’t see anything but dead trees and couldn’t hear anything but ghosts and couldn’t… couldn’t…

  I couldn’t.

  But someone could.

  And I could feel him burning.

  Almost by instinct, my fingers wrapped around his grip. And they burned. Patches of blood, fragments of bone sizzled on the metal as I raised him to my face, as he looked at me with those eyes of brass and powder.