Darkened Blade: A Fallen Blade Novel (7 page)

“Not widely, certainly, but I worked security for the office of the Signet. We kept files on every top player on the shadowside. A child spy who can breeze her way in and out of the most secure buildings in the eleven kingdoms draws our attention.”

“No one ever saw me.” Faran sounded defensive when she said it, but her face suggested that she felt some pride at having the sort of reputation that drew the attention of the Hand.

“No, they never did.” He shook his head. “We didn’t have a picture or even a description beyond young and female, and the name Faran was more than half a guess, but we had good reason to suspect the Ghostwind was one of . . . Namara’s missing apprentices. There, we had resources that other intelligence services did not.”

Faran’s expression hardened at the Hand’s brief hesitation, just as I felt my own doing. It was clear Chomarr wasn’t used to giving the goddess her proper name, or any respect. I briefly regretted not killing him earlier when it would have made the most sense, but then I put it aside. We had a common enemy, and whatever Chomarr might have been thinking, he’d had the sense or grace to make what finally came out of his mouth sound both proper and respectful.

Chomarr went on, apparently oblivious to the anger his pause had generated. “Your identity was one of the great mysteries, and we weren’t the only ones who wanted to know it. The Son of Heaven had . . . has unusual access to a lot of state secrets. Every government that we had contact with wanted to know who the Ghostwind was. You’re a legend.”

“Ghostwind.” Faran rolled the word out slowly, like she was testing its flavor. “I think I like that.”

“It suits you,” said Siri.

I agreed. “Doubly so. Back in Tien, ghosting is shadowside argot for making someone into a corpse.”

“The killing wind,” whispered Faran. “Yes, I do like it.”

Kelos ducked into a narrow gap between two buildings.
“Down this way. I know a place we can lie up till tomorrow night, if it’s currently accessible. An alley-knocker of sorts.”

A half hour later we were climbing down a rough-built ladder into a deep cistern. Wide cracks in the walls of the tank showed why it had been abandoned. Someone had knocked a hole in one wall, and a narrow tunnel descended farther from there. Thirty feet and two light-blocking turns led us into what looked like a natural cave with several tables in it and a low archway leading onward. A crudely lettered sign hung over the arch, marking the entrance of the illegal tavern: The Honest Man.

I had to laugh. Tradition named alley-knockers after the false or mythic, and that one cut deep.

“Where are we?” said Chomarr.

“There’s a layer of limestone underlying the whole city,” said Kelos. “It’s rotten with caves and sinkholes, and it houses much of shadowside Tavan, though it rarely breaks through the harder capstone layer to the surface. There’s been an alley-knocker in this location under one name or another for most of the last hundred years. Every so often the city guard rousts out the current version and plugs up the main entrance, but it’s such a handy spot that it always gets re-excavated after a while.”

The main room of the tavern was surprisingly well lit, and more than half-full, but we didn’t stay there long. An unpleasantly large chunk of our remaining cash bought us private use of a side cave for a night and a day. We could have gotten a cheaper room if we hadn’t wanted one of the three that had its own rabbit run to the outside world—a kick panel that opened a slide into the sewers, and the cheapest of the trio because of it.

The mole-faced fellow who showed it to us had said, “It’ll get you out, but it won’t be a bit of fun, and no doubts. There’s a drop at the end, but you land in a deep pool, so that’s less a problem than the smell you’ll be trailing when you eventually crawl out at t’ far end.”

Kelos dropped into a chair across the table from Chomarr.
“So, what can you tell us about current security arrangements at Heaven’s Reach?”

“I don’t think . . .” Chomarr began heatedly, but then trailed off while his Storm’s wings darkened with agitation. He took a deep breath. “Sorry. It’s going to take me a while to get used to the idea of working
with
you people, instead of against you.”

Chomarr tried again. “Even then, I’m not sure how much help I
can
be. After you marked him, the Son started changing everything around in the heart of the temple precinct, and he mostly kept the Hand out of the loop. That’s only gotten more true with the passing days. I haven’t been past the outermost ring of the precinct in almost a year, and neither has any other member of the Hand save only the Signet and her predecessors.”

“None of whom are available for discussion,” said Kelos sourly.

I saw a flash of grief and anger pass across Chomarr’s features, but if he wanted to make a sharp reply, he fought the impulse down.

Kelos either didn’t notice or didn’t care. “All right then, tell us what you
do
know. Start with the border patrols and work in toward the city and the temple precinct.”

Heaven’s Reach the domain was a small temple state in a long valley in the rough hills that separated the Kvanas from Aven. Heaven’s Reach the city was its only significant urban area and that more as a support structure for the temple precinct than anything. The business of city and realm was religion, and the Son of Heaven was its absolute ruler.

Kelos had spent the better part of five years living there in his role as chief of the traitor Blades of Heaven’s Shadow. He was perhaps the greatest assassin who had ever lived and he had gone in with the intent of betraying his new master as thoroughly as he had his old. He knew the city and the temple precinct and how they were defended as well as anyone, and now he grilled Chomarr on every changed detail.

It took long exhausting hours and I listened to every minute. My one trip to the city had been almost two years before, and brief, but I’d gone there to kill, which meant I had paid very close attention to everything. At the time, Kelos had supplied me with a magical skeleton key in the shape of a Signet’s living finger and ring minus the original owner. That had allowed me to bypass a lot of the work I’d normally have done, but the habits of a lifetime meant I’d done extensive reconnaissance anyway.

Without that knowledge I’d have been lost now. With it, I managed to keep up, but only at the cost of a nasty headache. Triss didn’t say anything—all the Shades were lying low with only the thin door between us and the common room, and servers coming and going—but I could tell by the way he kept squeezing my shoulders that he knew I was having a hard time of it.

Five hours on, Kelos finally let up. “I think I’ve about wrung you dry.”

“It certainly feels that way,” croaked Chomarr—his voice had gone from hoarse to worse some time ago. He threw himself down in a corner, going to sleep within moments.

“What do you think?” I asked Kelos.

“It’s going to be really nasty. He didn’t know what goes on in the deeps of the precinct these days, of course, but it sounds like every aspect of the outer cordon has tightened and hardened. Beyond the brute physical layout inside the precinct, it’s safe to say that very little of what I know from the old days is likely to hold true anymore. I suspect it wouldn’t help, but I wish you hadn’t left Signet Eilif’s finger on the Son of Heaven’s chest when you marked him. It’ll be like cracking a fresh nut.”

I nodded. “That’s what I thought, too, though I’ve only been there the once.” I had noticed that in all his questioning Kelos had very carefully avoided saying anything that might even imply the existence of a second ward key in the shape of Signet Nea’s finger, so I wasn’t surprised that he didn’t mention it now. It was a secret that only the two of us and
our Shades knew, and I didn’t see any reason to expand that circle just yet. “Siri, do you have any thoughts?”

“I never had call to enter the Reach before this, so that was about one third gibberish to me. I’ve got nothing.” The smoke wreathing through her hair and shadow might supply us with some possibilities on that front, but again, not something I wanted to share with an officer of the Hand of Heaven in the room—not even an ostensibly sleeping one on our side.

I looked at Faran, but she shook her head. “I was offered one or two jobs there when I was spying, but I turned them down. I never went within a hundred miles of the place, not even in transit. I didn’t want anything to do with the Son, or the Hand, ever again.” She looked pointedly at our guest, and made a subtle throat-cutting gesture. I flicked my hand in a sharp “no,” and she shrugged. “Worth asking. Maybe later.”

Just then there came a sharp rap on the door. A moment later, Mole-Face poked his nose through the gap. “It’s an hour past dawn and word just came down from one of our ears—there’s a couple of priests asking around up top for a group of four malcontents and a renegade Hand. Boss thought the description sounded like your lot, and that you might take kindly to a nod before they got much closer, as they’re trailing a good score of badly disguised temple soldiers in their wake. . . .”

“Your boss is a smart woman.” Kelos tossed the fellow a silver coin. “How close are they?”

“Not so close that you need to take shit’s highway.” He nodded toward the rabbit run. “But close enough you might want to go out the long way behind the bar . . . for a small fee, of course.”

“Of course.”

T
here
is nothing, absolutely nothing, half so tedious as messing about on barges.

As a mode of travel barges drive me to distraction. They’re slow. They’re cramped. They’re damp. It would have been a good deal faster to walk from Tavan to Uln on the tow path that followed the river, and much cheaper, and that’s almost certainly what we would have done, too, if it weren’t for the risen. Running water impedes the passage of the restless dead and the Tamar River was deep and wild.

The barge master had cleverly used the load of planks she was carrying upriver to Uln to create a sort of second deck atop the barrels and crates of her other goods. Add in the padding of heavy tarps, and it made a perfect fencing ring—irresistible to a bunch of bored Blades. . . .

I stopped my swords halfway to their sheathes when Siri indicated she wanted to go a round—I’d just finished a pass with Faran. “I’m up for it if you think you’re ready.” I flicked a look at the all too fresh scar where her left forearm ended. “But one hand against two hardly seems fair.”

It was only a few weeks on from the self-amputation of
her left hand, and the first time she’d indicated any desire to spar with anyone.

Siri’s smile was confident. “It’s all right, Aral. I’ll go easy on you.”

Don’t underestimate her just because she’s lost a hand,
sent Triss—the barge master couldn’t miss that we were something well outside her normal run of passengers, but there was no reason to
give
her the answer, which meant the Shades had to stay hidden.
Siri’s handled the risen all right.

The risen aren’t exactly a challenge on the individual level. It’s numbers that make them dangerous. Five or ten on open ground is a serious problem. In ones and twos with walls to guard your flanks, not so much.

I seem to remember them very nearly having you for dinner a couple of times back when we were helping Maylien recover her baronial seat. And that was only ever one or two at a time.

That’s different. I was a drunken wreck then,
and
I hadn’t recovered these yet.
I squeezed my hilts.

We’ll see.

As Faran waved for us to begin, Siri and I circled each other slowly. It had been nine years since the last time we’d had a bout, and both of us had changed a lot in that time. Siri’s missing arm was merely the most visible sign of that.

Despite what Triss might have implied, I had no intention of treating Siri lightly. She was one of the deadliest swordswomen that my order had ever produced. In the last year before the fall of the temple we’d fenced regularly, and if I scored one point for every three she did, well, that was a good day on my part. For that matter, I was only two years on from my drunk days. While I had been rotting away in a dive bar in Tien, Siri had been training daily with Ashkent and Kayla. My extra hand would probably reverse the old advantage in my favor. But I didn’t expect to get off without losing points and, probably, a little blood into the bargain—given that we were sparring with live steel.

I sensed more than saw Kelos when he arrived and took up a position opposite Faran to watch us, so focused was I
on Siri. We circled and counter-circled and circled again, all without engaging. Finally, impatient to get things moving, I offered her a very slight opening. Low, and left, ideal for a right-handed sword and her current edge position. She ignored it, and ignored the next one as well.

Fine, if she insisted that I move first, I would. I’d been very careful to keep my edges at angles to each other and the blades well apart to maximize the advantage that extra sword gave me. Now I attacked in the same way, driving in a low line thrust on the left, while simultaneously whip-snapping my right sword at Siri’s face in a cross chop. I could have gone for a more cautious approach, using one sword to attack and keeping the other ready to defend, but while playing it conservatively
might
keep Siri from scoring on me, it would
never
land a point on her.

She caught my left-hand sword with a parry and as neat a bind as I’d ever seen her manage, jerking it and me forward and out of line, while simultaneously ducking under the edge of my right.
Damn, but I’d forgotten how very fast she was.
Still, I’d hedged my attack by snapping my upper blade rather than committing to a full cut. Now, I was able to twist my wrist and bring it down toward the top of her head in a drawing slice as she dragged me to her left.

But she wasn’t there. In the instant after she’d pulled my left sword down and out of line, she disengaged, moving forward and left. Spinning past me, she flicked a backhanded cut at my right shoulder blade. But I turned with her, parrying her easily enough, then riposting with my free sword. She blocked it with the end of her hilt, catching my edge an inch below her pinky.

And so it went, for a good dozen passes. She had gotten
much
better, while I was only just recovering to what I had once been, and I couldn’t touch her. But my extra sword meant that she wasn’t having any more luck at scoring on me.

I was growing increasingly frustrated at my continued failure to even come close to a point against a one-handed opponent. I decided to force the issue, going in hard with a doubled
thrust and a long lunge at maximum speed and power. That was mistake one. Mistake two was getting into the habit of ignoring her missing hand.

She parried my left-hand sword with her right, and blocked my left with a beautiful back fan kick that caught the side of my blade and knocked it out of line. At that point my arms were spread wide, with my points forward and on either side of Siri. That’s when she snapped her stump arm across my throat as if she were making a neat, short, cut.

Wait, what?
I thought.

My confusion turned to grudging admiration when a smoky hand holding an equally smoky sword suddenly formed on the end of her stump, hiding the raw scars underneath. A moment later, a faint slithering burn kissed the front of my throat. What should have felt like a brief puff of warmth somehow grew an edge, tracing a bloody line across my skin.

I put up my swords and stepped back. “Killing point, since I assume that if you’d wanted to do more than edge kiss me there, you could have.”

Siri grinned and nodded, panting when she spoke. “I’ve been working at it for weeks now, and I can make the smoke as hard as steel for a few tenths of a second.”

“Which is all it takes,” I replied, somewhat acidly.

“Yep. Of course, it makes me feel like I’ve got maggots crawling through my brain every time, and I’m going to need to sit down now and catch my breath. It burns nima like a runaway soul tap.”

“Is it worth it?” I asked. That kind of magic drain could kill you—and very nearly had done for me once.

Siri laughed. “Oh yes! The look on your face alone justified the cost. When you realized that you’d been suckered . . . a thing of beauty.” But then she swayed on her feet, and went to one knee. “Still worth it, but ugh. The brain maggots are soooo much worse than the exhaustion. Stop giving me that look, Aral.”

“What look?” She raised her eyebrows, and I blushed and bowed my head. “And another point for Siri.”

She always finds a way to win,
sent Triss,
no matter what it costs. That’s what makes her great.

“I
have
to do this,” said Siri. “To get a handle on what I’ve become. If I don’t learn to master the buried god within, he will master me. Maybe not so directly as the way he tried back at the Brimstone Vale, but fear and revulsion are also types of control, and I will not give in to them.” She grinned abruptly. “Actually, this is your fault.”

I startled. “What do you mean by that?”

“Not fault really, since I appreciate you allowing me the opportunity to do this more than I can say.”

I was still baffled, and shook my head.

“When you took over as First Blade, it freed me from responsibility for anyone but myself. I can afford to risk things that I couldn’t before. Where I had to fight against the smoke within every single minute, now I can strive to make it mine, to own it instead of the other way round. You might even say that it’s become my duty. If I can master this, it will allow me to do things for the order that maybe no one else can.”

“And if it devours you?” Though I didn’t entirely believe there
was
an order anymore, I let that part of her remark pass unanswered.

Siri shrugged. “You’ll kill me. Before, you would have hesitated, bound by your sense of duty to my authority as well as our friendship. Now, that same sense of duty will force you to do the right thing. I find that enormously reassuring.”

I didn’t know what to say to that, so I turned away. Only to find myself facing Kelos, his eyes unspeakably sad. If I had believed for an instant that he was capable of betraying his own inner emotions, and not just aping sentiment to manipulate those around him, I might have taken some comfort there. As it was, I had to restrain myself from spitting at his feet.

“What do you want?” I growled.

“Are you exhausted yet, or would you care to go another couple of rounds?” He looked hopeful, almost wistful—more manipulation, certainly.

“With you?” I couldn’t keep the incredulity out of my voice.

He nodded, but his expression closed, and sarcasm laced his response, “Believe it or not, I need to practice as much as the rest of you.”

“Why not with Faran?”

Are you mad?
Triss asked me silently.

“I would prefer not to bleed out if I miss a parry,” replied Kelos. “I trust you not to kill me out of pique. Your apprentice . . .”

“It wouldn’t be pique,” said Faran. “It would be cold-blooded justice, and I’d be smiling all the while. Sunny, even.”

“So,” said Kelos. “Are you too tired to spar with me or not?”

“I’m good to go,” I said, surprised to find that it was true. Even six months ago, one serious round with Faran had been enough to wind me—maybe I really was the Kingslayer again.

“Will you?” Again he gave me that faux-wistful look.

I rolled my eyes, but nodded. “Fine, let’s do it.”

Are you sure about this?
asked Triss.

Not even a little bit.

Kelos stripped off his shirt as he crossed to the far side of our tiny arena. When he drew his swords and turned to face me, I couldn’t help but remember the last time I’d crossed blades with him. That had been in the Magelands, too, atop the roof of the proctor house at the University of Ar. . . . I say crossed blades where I should probably not. I’d drawn steel right enough, but Kelos hadn’t bothered. He hadn’t needed to. He’d taken me down using little more than his bare hands.

It was embarrassing in the extreme and I couldn’t help but relive that humiliation now. Would he defeat me as easily again? I was in much better shape than I’d been then, but he hadn’t even needed to draw on me. I felt a bead of sweat form at my hairline and roll down the side of my face.

No.

I would not let him outface me this way. I refused. He
might beat me anyway, but he would have to do it with steel. I wouldn’t let him win the fight inside my head. Not ever again. I forced myself to be calm. Forced myself to
be
the Kingslayer, and not just Aral. Kelos might be a legend, but so by the goddess was I.

I drew my swords and advanced on my old master, every sense at maximum alert, every nerve alight. There was none of the cautious circling that Siri and I had indulged in this time. Kelos came in hard and fast. He outweighed me by a good fifty pounds, all of it muscle. He used that advantage ruthlessly, hammering away at me with blows that would have shattered lesser swords, driving me back and back again with sheer raw power.

It was daunting. Doubly so since I knew that he could shift styles in a heartbeat, moving from force to finesse with ease. He had done so all the time back in the days when he taught me to use my swords—mirroring the styles of a dozen of the order’s most dangerous foes in aid of teaching us to defeat them. Through him, my childhood self had lost fights with the Elite, the Dyads, the Hairi . . . And, dammit, there he was again, beating me in my head instead of on the field.

He had backed me to the very edge of our impromptu ring, though I’d kept him from pinning me in the corner. I was in danger of letting him push me right into the river if I didn’t do something quickly. By sliding sharply to my left and at the cost of two points—one to my wrist, another on my shoulder—I managed to get around Kelos and shift back toward the center of the ring. It might not be in my head, but he was still beating me, and maybe he always would.

Kelos scored a third point then, knocking my right-hand sword aside with another smashing cut followed by a reversal of his blade to slap my hip with the flat, and that was the match.

“Again?” asked Kelos.

I wanted so very much to say no, to plead exhaustion and slither away to lick my wounds, though I was far more injured in spirit than flesh. It would have been the easy thing to do, the smart thing, even. But I refused to give up. I won’t
say that I couldn’t have walked away, because I could have. I just wouldn’t.