Shadowblade (7 page)

Shalthazar approached the terrified man and looked him in the eyes, noticing that the man was breathing hard and sweat was beading on his brow despite the cold air. The wizard slowly circled the lesser man and his apprentices looked on as he spoke to the man.

“How did you ever become one of
my
apprentices?” asked the master wizard scathingly. “You are a pathetic waste. You are fearful and weak and you will now die.”

The man whimpered and tears rolled down his cheeks as his former master looked upon him scornfully.

“It seems you can do one useful thing for me,” said the wizard, enjoying the game. “You can feed my golem!”

The hideous beast launched itself from the mound in a great leap and landed near the wizard and his paralyzed apprentice. It landed with a thud that shook the ground and caused the man who was about to die to shudder, despite the effects of the spell. Shalthazar only laughed louder, watching the golem sniff the man before it bit him in half and swallowed his body in two great noisy gulps.

Shalthazar was pleased to see the golem immediately grow stronger, its flesh darkened and another set of eyes and a mouth appeared on its great head.

“Congratulations, Master,” said Urelis. “Your spell was a success.”

“Indeed it was Urelis,” said the Master.

“What do we do with it now?” asked Charl.

“We must take it back to Fort Ogrewall and conceal it in the dungeons. When the time is right, we will conduct secret operations in the Cklathlands with our golem.”

The three remaining Sigilists began their trip back to Fort Ogrewall. Shalthazar’s mind was on the next phase of his plan.

C H A P T E R

3

Late.

Hugh Renaul strode along Market Street, the main street of Hybrand City, until he found his destination. He was here at the bidding of his master, Prince Cannath. Hugh was a loyal and devoted friend of the prince, having spent a lot of time with him in Arnathia where the two grew up. When Cannath consented to return to Hybrand after his mother died, his old friend Hugh came with him.

Today Hugh was running errands for his prince. He had already dropped off a number of warrants at the Marshall’s Office, delivered missives to General Craxis, picked up supplies for the office, and paid the Master Smithy of Hybrand for making him a very fine coat of chain mail. His last run of the day brought him to Master Giles’ shop, famous for his Cklathish whiskey and beer.

“Thank you Master Giles! Lord Cannath will be most pleased. Here is a token of his appreciation,” he said as he pressed a diamond coin into the brewmaster’s hand. The old man’s eyes lit up. His family and that of Cannath’s murdered great-uncle had long been friendly.

“Tell my prince it is my honor to give him my finest work!” he whispered fiercely. Master Giles’ daughter, Deirdre, gave Hugh a disinterested glance as she brought out the items Hugh had just paid for.

Hugh was a handsome man of Arnathian blood. His parents were nobles; his mother an Arnathian lady and his father a provincial military general of high standing. Yet, despite the ties of his blood and his proper upbringing, Hugh was not the Arnathian loyalist many had prejudged him to be. Prince Cannath had been secretly using Hugh to collect intelligence against the Arnathians and begin the process of breaking the Arnathian stranglehold on Hybrand.

Master Giles truly liked Hugh and he stood firmly behind Prince Cannath’s secret plans to rebel against Arnathia, he and his apprentices were stockpiling supplies of food for the rebellion. It was no secret that Deirdre was in fact quite fond of the young man. But Hugh could not find a place in his heart for anyone until he saw his friend sitting atop the throne of Hybrand.

“Careful, my friend. Using that title could get your tongue cut around here,” he smiled as he delivered the warning. Hugh was a very smart man and he possessed a very long memory. He was a skilled accountant and mathematician and kept books better than anyone Cannath knew. He was a scholar of ancient history, including Cklathish, and he could speak seven languages fluently. Giles smiled and nodded and Deirdre sighed wistfully as Hugh left the little shop.

Hugh made his way to the Temple of Qra’z and stood beside the massive golden gate, its bejeweled bars studded with rubies and sapphires gleamed in the sun. Two guards, resplendent in their golden dragon breastplates and shining helms, eyed him for but a moment, then resumed their disinterested staring at the comings and goings of Market Street.

His contact was supposed to meet him here in front of the main gate in the disguise of one of the Collector Monks who routinely walked the street in front of the Temple collecting coins from the commoners who were not oft allowed inside the temple of Qra’z.

When the appointed time came and went, Hugh knew he had better move on. Punctuality was critical in the game he played. Most of his contacts and operatives knew that it was far better not to show up for an appointment at all than to show up late. Often times a missed appointment meant that an operative had been compromised or captured, or at the least had encountered unwanted attention. Yes, Hugh knew it was far better to leave and await a signal to attempt contact again later. And that was precisely what he planned to do.

As Hugh was about to leave, a Collector Monk approached. Something told him to leave anyway, but he didn't. This monk was a brute of a fellow, at least six feet tall and almost as wide. He had an awkward gait and his face was hidden deep in the shadows of his hood, except for his nose. That nose with its flat bulbous shape and flaring nostrils was very common among the Hoth Islanders who hailed from a distant part of the Arnathian Empire. They were devoted worshippers of Zervish, the sea goddess, and about as unpredictable as she. In fact, the Hoth Islanders largely denied the fact that the Arnathians had actually annexed them into the empire. Occasionally an Imperial warship would come to port in Hoth Major and the Hother King would pay his tribute to the Arnathians who would promptly leave.

Arnathia knew it had a source of free flowing money from the Hothers so long as they played their game well with the Imperials. The Hothers were partial to two very lucrative pastimes: silk and spice trading with Far Kharbandom, and pirating. The legitimate Hother traders were militant and armed their trading ships to the teeth with sophisticated weapons and trained mercenaries. The Pirate King of Hoth Minor had an iron grip on the sea-ways to the various Kharbandom regions and his pirate lords were ruthless and effective at raiding foreign lands and plundering foreign merchant ships. It was often alleged that the two Hother kings worked in concert with each other. Truly a bizarre relationship that Hugh had not spent much time studying. He did know that so long as the Hothers provided income to the empire and the empire did not choose to spread across the sea to Far Kharbandom, their odd relationship would likely continue.

Hugh studied the man intently. In all his years he had never seen a Hother who had devoted himself to Qra’z or had chosen to serve the Arnathian Empire in any way. When the man was upon him, Hugh remembered his cardinal rule: never wait for a late appointment. Risking the ire of the guardsmen, Hugh decided to continue on his way and turned to leave when one of the guardsmen stepped in front of him and slammed the butt of his spear loudly on the cobblestones. “Going somewhere Renaul?” asked the man, giving him a dark grin.

“Yes, I am late for my appointment with Lord Cannath!” he said, trying to intimidate the guard.

“Lord, is it? Well, you wouldn’t want to forget your dues to Qra’z would you, Renaul?” he asked, leaning the tip of his spear close to Hugh’s face. Although Hugh was no warrior, he was no coward either, he very casually brushed away the guard’s spear. As he stepped around the guard a large meaty hand grabbed him by the shoulder.

“Well, well. If it isn’t Cannath’s little birdie!” came the gruff, crass, Hothish voice thick with Hothish surliness. “You wouldn’t want to leave without giving Qra’z your due, would you, Birdie?” The bully’s hood slid back just a little leaving Hugh no doubt in his mind what had happened to his contact. He cursed the man for fool; everyone in this business knew that if you got caught you swallow your own tongue, as the saying went. Every operative and contact had some sort of device that they would use to take their own life should the situation warrant it. Some would, in fact, swallow their own tongues while others carried a concealed razor with which they could slash their throat. While still others would use a poison powder kept hidden in a ring or necklace. Those who were gifted with magical powers had still other ways to escape or end their own life. Hugh was in the latter category and his method required the uttering of a single incantation and rubbing a piece of wormroot wood on his neck to close off his airway. Hugh was a faithful man and had recently begun learning the ways of the new order of warrior monks, the Order of the Open Palm, dedicated to Zuhr. And he hoped by the legendary wisdom of his brethren that his contact did not give up anything before killing himself.

Hugh kept his wormroot -utterly harmless when not used in conjunction with a magical incantation- in the form of an accountant’s numbering stick, marked with the mathematical formulas one needed to keep accounts, records, and ledgers. A sense of dread passed over the man and he knew, with a sinking feeling in his stomach, that he was going to die. However, Hugh knew that death was not the end, rather it was a glorious beginning in an afterlife where he would be rewarded. Without hesitation, Hugh placed the wormroot stick to his throat; he was prepared to give his life for his cause. But, the moment he moved to place the wormroot stick to his throat he felt all of his joints lock painfully in place. Fear gripped his very soul and his heart pounded in his chest.

“Did we scare the little birdie? I wonder where the little birdie’s friends are. Seems to me a little birdie needs to be with ’is other little birdie friends, eh?” The brute’s hood slipped off in the breeze and revealed something that any other person would have paid no heed to. In fact, anyone but Hugh would have assumed the scarred Hother had succumbed to some mysterious disease causing the flesh on his bald head to become scaly like that of a serpent. But Hugh knew the truth. Anyone who could make his joints lock with a single word and bore the serpent scales on his head could be none other than a Soulbound Smiter, the Binder Mages in the secret employ of Qra’z. Yes, he thought with dread, Soulbound Smiters were known for their dealings with the demons of the Shadow Realms. They gained powerful abilities from the bargains they made with those demons. The most dreaded power a Soulbound Smiter possessed was the ability to take a person’s soul from their body and feed it to their demon host, leaving the mortal frame a lifeless husk able to be animated and manipulated, or possessed.

“Little birdie knows me, he does. Little birdie has knowledge, he does,” the Smiter laughed mercilessly. “Little birdie will taste good, heh, heh.”

Terror filled him as he frantically thought of a means of escape or death before the worst happened. Then another set of hands grab him from behind, as he was shoved through an inconspicuous door in the wall surrounding the temple compound.

Mentally kicking himself he thought over and over,
Never wait for a late appointment!