Shadowblade (29 page)

Zach purchased a variety of the cakes and left the bakery, smiling with thoughts of the reception his cakes would receive. A few minutes after leaving the bakery the familiar green and pink pastel building that was
The Siren’s Call
appeared ahead of him. The street was thronged with people until he neared the
Call.

No one stood outside on the street, no one went inside, and the few who passed by gave the building a wide berth. The hairs on the back of Zach’s neck rose and a dreadful feeling came over him.

“Something’s wrong,” whispered the voice, confirming his suspicions. Zach grimaced and continued to walk toward the
Call
, one hand on
Morloth
. The door was open.

Zach walked past the building as though he had no intention of stopping there and glanced at the open door as he passed. On the door was red and white sign, bearing the emblem of the Red Dragons. When he saw that sign, and noticed the door was hanging askew, he became angry. Fury and rage channeled through him like powerful torrents of energy and he seized them with his will, channeled the hate he felt for the Red Dragons into purpose.

He ducked into the alleyway beyond the
Call
and followed it around the backside of the building, tossing the bag of cakes to a beggar as he went. He was looking for the back way into the building.
Zach unsheathed his sword from its place beneath his long coat and held it ready, with
Morloth
in the other hand. He found the nondescript door that led into the rear of the building, it was also open. He passed through the door cautiously but confident that he would not be seen, unless there was a werewolf waiting for him inside. But he doubted that something as powerful and clever as a werewolf would align itself with the clumsy and amateurish Red Dragons.

The doorway was situated at the end of the main hallway. It was silent, the only sound was from the breeze that occasionally caused a broken door to creak in protest. The hallway was dimly lit by flickering oil lamps and the client rooms were located on either side. The far end of the hallway led to the main room in the front of the building. The first door he came to on the right side had been forced open. When he peered inside his fears were confirmed.

He looked closely at the body of the woman atop the bloody bed but did not recognize her face. It was apparent that the soldier who killed her had enjoyed himself before killing the woman. Zach felt his body temperature rising and he was sure that if it were possible his blood would be boiling in his veins.

He turned away from the grisly scene and continued to the next room, it was empty. There were other rooms that were not empty and Zach had to exert every ounce of willpower he possessed to maintain his self-control. Three of the six rooms bore the massacred bodies of the girls who worked for Siren, one of them he was certain had been Kella.

He reached the end of the hallway and the broken doors that led into the main room. The fire in the hearth was still lit but the draft from the open doors drained away the heat. A male customer lay slumped over the counter at the bar, his throat cut and his face laying a pool of his own blood. Another customer lay on the stone floor next to the hearth, his stomach flayed open and his insides lumped in a pile beside his hands. His anguished expression revealed that he had died slowly.

He stalked over to the bar and smashed his sword against a stool over and over in frustration. The stool exploded into splinters but it did nothing to ease his rage. And when he walked behind the bar and saw the crumpled form of the woman he had grown fond of, it seemed that his life had left him. He bent down then to look at her face, holding her head in his hands, to try to remember what it looked like before it had been so battered. It was then he saw that there was a note affixed to the side of her head. He hadn’t seen it from the way her head had limply hung to the side. He reached over to pull the note away but it was stuck. Gently moving her head to the side he saw why the note would not move and the last vestiges of emotion and feeling drained away.

The note had been nailed to the side of her head.

He pulled the note away from the nail angrily and held it up to the light of an oil lamp beside the bar.

Consorting with enemies of the crown,
was all it said

He stood there for a while, surveying the carnage,
Morloth
in his hand. He was deeply disturbed and saddened by the tragic losses, these were just people who had gotten between him and the Dragons. Then it bothered him that he even felt anything all, he was a killer after all.

And yet, Zach just couldn’t shake the raw emotion and the knowledge the Red Dragons must come to regret what they had done here. He crumpled the note up in his hand and held it, crushed, in his grip. Then he pulled his hood over his head, casting his face in shadow and calmly walked out of the
Call
through the front door onto the dockway.

“It is time to kill,” hissed the voice. And Zach agreed. The Red Dragons were going to pay dearly for this.

Over the following weeks news of the assassin known as the “Shadowblade” spread quickly through the Port of Powyss. Everyone had heard of his legendary assaults on the Red Dragons whose duty it was to keep the peace of the city. Most of the attacks had occurred at night along the waterfront, but more and more of the Red Dragons were being murdered in broad daylight and in other parts of the city, many of them were found drained of blood.

The citizens of Powyss seemed to enjoy the Shadowblade’s attacks on the Red Dragons, as most viewed the red sashed militia with contempt and felt that their city would be better off if the thieving soldiers were all dead. The Red Dragons had begun to limit the number of their impromptu checkpoints and special “tax days” as these seemed to draw the most attention from the Shadowblade. Rarely did the soldiers patrol in numbers less than twelve now and with at least two Tartarus Monks to support them. But the Shadowblade still struck, picking them off when they were inattentive or lagging behind a group.

Zach was pleased with the reputation that the Shadowblade had earned, many estimated the number of the Shadowblades’ victims to be near one hundred. Zach had smiled when he heard that because the number was actually higher.

But Zach was becoming bored with the Shadowblade. Certainly his accomplishments were something to be proud of, but he was not attaining the power and influence he so desired. He was simply killing, and with no apparent purpose the killings were not giving him a sense of accomplishment and did nothing to ease the anguish he felt for the loss of the only woman he found himself attracted to in many years. The only satisfaction he gained from it all now came from his attacks on their tax checkpoints, one of the reasons why he targeting those operations.

He had not been visited by the werewolf again and wondered if it had left him to track down Carym and the others. He shrugged at the thought, he did his duty by sending Trelwigger back to Obyn to warn them of the danger. Whether the old man could even find them again, or if they listened to him, was of no concern to the Shadowblade.

Zach had expected the
Nyzyr
to find him at some point. But the more he thought about it, why would they? He was doing their work for them and doing it for free. They had not claimed him and would not be held accountable for his actions.

Zach did seem to enjoy living in the big port city, and though he was not gaining the power he wanted he was accumulating a good deal of wealth. Springtime would come soon and the good weather would bring a renewed season of trade which would bring possibilities for enhancing his wealth even more. But he also knew that the criminal organizations that ran the underworld of Powyss would not tolerate the Shadowblade for much longer. Either he would be found and forced to join one of them, or he would be killed.

Zach decided it was time to find the
Nyzyr.

Nighttown was that part of Powyss where the more powerful criminal enterprises enjoyed a measure of autonomy, even from the Red Dragons. And while he had visited there often enough, he had never been able to find the actual houses from which the guilds and organizations operated from. This didn’t surprise him, as anonymity was a criminal’s best friend.

Nighttown was considered to be neutral ground among the nefarious groups of the Powyss underworld, allowing each to run its particular enterprises without interference. The Red Dragons were well aware of the neutral status of Nighttown. During their time as one of the respected guild-houses in Powyss the Red Dragons came and went with the same freedom afforded members of all the criminal enterprises. After their rise to power however, the other guild houses banded together against the Red Dragons and burned their headquarters down. It was a message to them that they were no longer welcome in Nighttown. The Red Dragons led several assaults on Nighttown, but each sortie met with such fierce guerilla resistance that the group was forced to abandon the district altogether.

Tonight Zach found himself in Nighttown spending the right amount of money in the right places, and earning a measure of acceptance from the other town-goers. During his early visits, he had been accosted by a few would-be muggers he was forced to kill. The sheer savage nature of his attacks, along with his incredible fighting skills marked him as one to avoid among the street urchins who preyed upon the weak and weary. Zach had expected this sort of reception but he was not troubled by it, he was here to obtain information and prices had to be paid.

Ever since that day on the docks Zach had begun to wonder if he should leave Powyss for the Steel Empire, where the lich had said the old bloodline might still be found. He had nothing to go on, no descriptions, and so he simply waited to hear of any visitors or merchants arriving from the nearby Steel Empire. Then he would see if
Morloth
alerted him as it had before.

It was another blustery day in Powyss and it seemed thick, wet, snowflakes were falling in buckets. But Zach did purchase an expensive coat said to be made from the hide of a great aquatic beast with huge fangs that lived in Vaardlund and feasted on unwary sailors. Having been a sailor in the fearsome Arnathian Fleet, Zach was aware of most of creatures of the seas. His jacket was most likely made from the hide of a walrus, a beast that rarely, if ever, preyed on people. Despite the unsavory reputation of the beast from which this coat was made, he was very pleased with it. It was warm and, as promised, water proof and had a hood that could be rolled up and tucked away in a flap on the inside of the coat. With his hood pulled low, Zach made his way through the streets of Nighttown to a tavern called
The Sultan Khel.

The Sultan Khel
was the place that Siren had told him of before she died. It didn’t seem much different than other taverns he visited except that the barkeep and many of the patrons were of Karbander descent. During his frequent visits, Zach had listened to the varied stories of the Shadowblade and his exploits against the Red Dragons. With the seeming demise of that group looming on the horizon there was much suspicion among the gangs and groups of Nighttown that a rival might just try to usurp the place of the Red Dragons. Zach knew that such an occurrence would lead to war among the criminal houses and would be bad for all parties involved. He wondered how long it would take for them to realize this and make a treaty among themselves.

Zach had been to this tavern several nights in a row, listening, hoping to hear someone mention the
Nyzyr.
Zach even engaged a few of his fellow patrons in conversation, always steering the topic to the Shadowblade and how he was ridding the city of the Red Dragons, one by one. But his fellow tavern-goers never took the bait, and none mentioned the
Nyzyr.
And though many significant murders were attributed to the mysterious group, he was beginning to wonder if the
Nyzyr
existed at all. Zach had even paid another visit to Baldric in hopes of learning more about the
Nyzyr
but the old man insisted that one did not seek the
Nyzyr,
the
Nyzyr
would seek him. Whenever a person mentioned the infamous assassins by name, word would eventually reach the group that a potential customer was seeking to hire them. Always, they studied their clients from afar and never did a client see the
Nyzyr’s
face.