Queen of the North (Book 3) (Songs of the Scorpion) (9 page)

As she came back, Rathe sat up, curious.

“I had it forged for you,” she said, holding out the sword. “Captain Ostre might count it bad luck that we’ve stayed in Iceford this long, but for me it’s been a blessing.”

The scabbard was of tooled black leather covered in intricate silver filigree. He gripped the leather-wrapped hilt above a silver crossguard fashioned into a pair of scorpions locked claw-to-claw. With a soft whisper of steel sliding over leather, he drew the burnished blade. The edge was free of nicks and deadly bright, and an etched chain of scorpions marched along the length of the fuller. The balance of the weapon was perfect. The sword was masterwork, making his previous weapons seem like crude utensils. It was also of virgin, unblooded steel. He wondered how long it would remain so.

“I can never repay such a gift.”

“I can think of a few ways you can try,” Nesaea said, joining him on the bed.

Rathe hid his smile. It seemed that she had fallen into his trap.

Chapter 7

Cloaked by a heaving and unnatural darkness, Algar’s lips twisted as the sounds of lovemaking began again, thrusting through the wooden door and into his ear like a cold dagger. His thin lips contracted in disgust.
Do they ever stop?

He had trailed Rathe for years, ever waiting for the right moment to strike. As such, he knew well the man’s penchant for tumbling any woman foolish enough to have him. Nesaea, Rathe’s current wench, was mistress of an entire troupe of likeminded sluts who concealed their true purpose behind singing and dancing. She apparently didn’t mind that the once esteemed Rathe Lahkurin had fallen so low as to be considered a common brigand in his homelands.

But then whores were whores, and cared only for the coin they earned in pleasuring men. This Algar knew all too well, having suckled milk from the teat of a common slattern—his mother.

Kill ‘im, Algar,
her warbling, wine-soaked voice crooned in his mind. Stray thoughts never failed to summon his dear dead mother.
Carve ‘is heart an’ have yer revenge, boy. Slaughter him and the whore he’s plowin’! Do it now!

Algar gripped the hilt of his sword. The shadows around him boiled and pulsed, provoked by his hatred for both his mother and Rathe.

Do it, Algar!

Teeth grinding, he drew the blade an inch from the scabbard. He sucked in a breath and prepared to pass through the wooden door as easily as a ghost. Such was the gift of the dark magic nested within his flesh.

No more waitin’, boy!

Algar envisioned himself materializing in his enemy’s room from a cloud of shadow. He saw Rathe and Nesaea’s gasps of shock when they recognized him, the one they had named the Shadowman.

Now, boy!

A whine of tortured ecstasy squeezed from his throat, as he pictured Rathe and Nesaea’s astonishment become agony when he impaled them upon the length of his blade. Both at the same time! Two with one deadly thrust! Rathe and his filthy slut!

Do it, boy!

Algar saw them die in his mind, their corpses bound together by blood, steel, and the issue of their loins.

Now!
his mother howled.

The spent breath burning in Algar’s chest burst out of him, cold now, foul, acrid.
I cannot!
He slammed his sword home. The shadows grew still as frozen smoke.
Rathe will die
, Algar promised the unrelenting harpy that had birthed him into such a detestable world,
as will his whore … in time. But not yet. No, no, not yet.

When will you act, you pissin’ wretch?
asked his mother. Though she was long dead, Algar hated her as much as he ever had, maybe more, as her spirit was with him more now than she had ever been in life.

Soon
, he answered.

Soon? How soon? How soon afore you stop shittin’ down yer leg whenever tha’ black-hearted monk says you must, boy? How soon afore you stand on yer own, and do wha’s yours by right to do?

Algar tensed at the mention of his current accomplice.
Jathen doesn’t command me
.

Well then, you mus’ be affrighted, boy. Affrighted the Scorpion’ll beat you a third time … and mayhap that’d be for the best
.

Algar ignored her last slight.
First Rathe
must
know who will kill him and why … the Scorpion
must
acknowledge who is the better of us … the Champion of Cerrikoth
must
admit that he took for himself what was mine! And when he does, I’ll make him watch as I slaughter his whore, so that he feels the loss I felt at his treachery.

You been makin’ the same promise for years, Algar. Methinks fear stays yer hand. As the boy was, so now is the man—a snivelin’ coward. Tha’s why you failed to cleave the Scorpion’s stinger not once, but twice, and tha’s why you stand here shakin’ now.

No.

No?

No!
Algar screamed in his mind.
He cheated me of my honor and the king’s blessing! He took everything from me!

Even now, years after their first meeting—a meeting Rathe no doubt didn’t recall—and long before hounding him over the Gyntors and crossing blades with him in the halls of Ravenhold, Algar could still hear the roaring jubilance of the crowd, could still feel the shame of defeat while lying in the shadow of the man who’d humiliated him. Rathe Lahkurin, with his upraised sword glittering in the summer sun, turning slowly before the King of Cerrikoth and the folk of Onareth.
He was only boy then, as was I.
The sharpest memory of that day was the cocky victor’s smile that had spread across Rathe’s lips when he leaned over Algar, hand outstretched like a father reaching to lift his fallen child.

Taking my glory was not enough!
Algar seethed.
No, the bastard had to twist the dagger of disgrace by shaming me in front of his legions of admirers … in front of the king … in front of the entire realm … even in front of you, mother!

Hard, that’d be,
his mother snickered,
as I was naught but bones an’ dust by then. You mus’ remember that, don’t you, m’sweet boy—

Leave me!

For a wonder, she did go, though he sensed her mirth waiting to bubble to the surface. Most times, she refused to leave him in peace, choosing instead to squat in the back of his mind like some humpbacked fiend, endlessly prodding him, endlessly belittling him. He hated her, wanted to kill her again, a thousand more times and in a thousand different ways—

Behind the door, Nesaea let out a soft cry of pleasure. Guts churning, Algar edged back, his face knotted like a fist.

As a child in various flesh-houses of Onareth, Algar had had no choice but to listen to his mother’s false cries as strangers labored between her legs. Sometimes after those men spilled their seed, they would then defile him. A shiver of remembered pain and humiliation gripped Algar’s lean frame, for that was not the entire truth. Rather, his mother had coaxed a few more coppers from the purses of those men by offering up her son to use as they wished.

Sneaking footsteps coming up the stairs dragged a startled hiss through Algar’s teeth. Still cloaked within shadows, he wheeled in absolute silence and merged with the natural shadows farther down the hallway.

He squatted on his heels, the fingers of one hand parting the collar of his tunic to touch the source of his power, a cloudy gray gemstone the size of his fist, sunk deep into the raw meat and knitted to the fractured bones of his chest. A necromancer living amongst the highest crags of the Mountains of Arakas had placed it there at great cost, but Algar had never considered the price anything less than a bargain.

Marking the approaching footsteps, he muttered arcane words he had engraved upon his heart and mind. The hue of the Spirit Stone changed to charcoal shot through with veins of red and gold. It grew warm within his breast, then hot, then blistering. He felt himself changing, becoming less than flesh and blood, less even than air.

A scream of torment clogged the back of his throat as the searing fires spread, filling him up until he thought he must soon burst into flame. When the agony had stretched him to the limits of endurance, the stone went as cold and gray as a chunk of dirty ice. He let out a panting gasp and lifted his head.

The details of the hallway remained unchanged, but all was darker to his eyes, as if a thunderhead had blotted out the light of day.

And he was no longer alone.

Hidden as he was between two worlds, he saw spirits flitting through the walls, floor, and ceiling. The gossamer figures, their distorted features smudgy and smoke-gray, ignored him as always. In this place between life and death, what the necromancer had named the Zanar-Sariit, Algar was not truly dead, nor was he truly alive, yet he could pass through the worlds of each, as if he were both. The necromancer had warned him that the Zanar-Sariit was a dangerous place to visit often, unless you fancied losing your soul. Yet Algar had never felt threatened here. If anything, the
between
realm was the only place he had ever know true peace.

Invisible and untouchable to the dead and to the living alike, Algar watched a pair of shave-headed men in thick brown cloaks creep up the stairs, unaware of the roving spirits passing through them.

Algar instantly recognized the fellow who had named himself Edrik. He had been waiting for Rathe when Algar came out of the Zanar-Sariit earlier. Edrik had babbled some nonsense tale about needing help. When Rathe denied him, the fool had drawn a dagger. Rathe had easily disarmed the youth. If Edrik was a bounty hunter, Algar judged that no man had ever been more ill-suited to the task. Instead of cutting Edrik’s throat, Rathe had let him go. During his years of hunting the man, Algar had seen his rival slaughter many foes without hesitation. He supposed mercy, just this once, had stayed the Scorpion’s sting.

Mercy is for fools
, Algar thought, watching Edrik fish a small golden flask out of an inner pocket of his cloak, pull the stopper, and take a sip. Grimacing, he handed the flask to the hulking man beside him. Of the pair, the second looked a man suited for battle. But when he drank from the ornate flask, he grabbed his belly and bent double, gagging like a boy taking his first taste of wine.

Algar’s stifled chuckle died when the two men began to grow dim,
insubstantial
. Soon, they had vanished entirely. For a moment, Algar feared they would emerge within his refuge, but they never did. They were simply gone.

After a few anxious moments, his fear abated, replaced by covetous admiration.
Now that’s a trick worth having! But where did they get off to?

His eyes narrowed when a linty ball of dust skittered down the hall, as if disturbed by an errant breath of air.
What’s this?
Before the thought was complete, something unseen squashed the fluff against the wooden floor. Algar blinked in amazement. The two men hadn’t gone anywhere, but had become transparent. Unlike him, it seemed they had no need to lurk within shadows.
What other tricks do they have?

“You’re sure this is the room, Edrik?” a gruff voice whispered.

“I’m no fool, Danlin.”

“Never said you were, but mistakes happen.”

“Not this time,” said Edrik.

Algar marked their progress by their voices and the way the grit on the floor shifted at their passage. They halted at Rathe and Nesaea’s door. If he acted swiftly, Algar knew he could kill them and take their potion for himself. Yet if he did that, doubtless the bustle would alert Rathe. Also, in killing the two, he would rob himself of finding out where the potion had come from, and how to acquire more.

“We should kick in the door and take him,” Danlin said.

Having survived his first encounter with Rathe, it seemed Edrik was more cautious. “I’d rather persuade him to join our cause. If we hold him against his will, he’s not likely to help us. We must
convince
him.”

“You tried that already. As I recall, you’re lucky he didn’t kill you.”

“I’ve no fear of death at his hands,” Edrik said, his confidence sounding forced.

A pause. “A foretelling from the Oracle?”

“As befitting his station,
Quidan
Salris never reveals all of the Oracle’s tellings to
Essan
Thaeson, but our master was able to glean enough for us to find Rathe. More than that, I looked into Rathe’s eyes, and it was not my death I saw.”

“Well,” Danlin said dubiously, “now that we’ve found him, and he’s refused you once already, how do you plan to ‘persuade’ him to come to Targas?”

Another pause.

Algar waited, scarcely breathing.

The thin layer of dirt outside Rathe and Nesaea’s door scuffed about. Behind the door came soft, breathless laughter.

“Can you hear them?” Edrik asked.

“I’d rather not,” Danlin said. “But, yes.”

“Have you seen the way they look at each other?”

“I have, but I cannot see how that helps us.”