Nightblade: A Book of Underrealm (The Nightblade Epic 1) Read online

  “The same who sent us,” came the new voice. “They seek a man and a girl, and said they saw the girl near your caravan.”

  “They told us the same,” said Damaris. “But we told them we had seen nothing.”

  “I have heard the tale. But then I questioned them closely. For many merchants upon the road carry goods that give the King great displeasure. To stow them, such merchants might hide panels and holes within their wagons. I asked my brother constables if they had searched for such concealment, and they confessed to their folly. They sent me to see if such might be found.”

  Loren’s throat went bone dry. Silence lingered outside the wagon.

  At last, the man spoke again. “What say you, my lady? Must my men break your wagons apart plank by plank?”

  Damaris hesitated only a moment before answering. “There is no need. The girl hides within that one. Come, and I will take you to her.”

  eleven

  The constable’s thin, wheedling voice rang out in the still air.

  “Surround the wagon! Leave no space for escape.”

  Loren feared she might vomit. If she had held any illusion of walking with Damaris outside the law, that fancy had gone. She must flee as fast as she could, before the men surrounded the wagon.

  Loren flung away the wooden panel. With no one standing at the wagon’s rear she still had a chance.

  As she tensed to run, a cry of alarm sounded from outside the wagon: Damaris.

  “She has fled!” Damaris cried. “Where did she go? Gregor!”

  “I know not, my lady,” said the captain. “My men stood vigilant.”

  “Vigilant as sleeping bears,” snapped Damaris. “Find her, or it will go ill with you all!”

  Loren stood rooted to the wagon’s floor. No one stood near her wagon. What game did Damaris think to play? Loren could not know, but she had no choice but to place her faith in the merchant.

  Quick and quiet, she settled back into the hidden space. Her fingers slid across the wood panel, and she winced as a splinter sank into her flesh. Silently, she lowered it back into place.

  The wagon shook under heavy feet just seconds later. A man climbed inside. Loren heard shouts farther down the line: the lawmen had split up, searching the wagons in ones and twos.

  In a moment, they would find Loren, and all would converge upon her. Whatever Damaris planned, Loren hoped it would take place soon. The wood shook beneath her head. Her breath fell fast and ragged.

  The man grunted and heaved. The wood panel flew up to reveal her. Not the constable, but one of his riders. A grey mustache sat atop old, weathered lips. Deep lines creased his face from cheeks to eyes. Those eyes squinted, and then widened.

  The man’s chest erupted in a spray of blood, twelve inches of steel protruding from his breastbone.

  Loren screamed.

  The man gurgled and sagged. His lifeblood soaked her, dousing Loren’s cloak. She saw Gregor behind him as he fell. The giant’s eyes shone cold and baleful, like the blue flame of an ancient king’s funeral pyre. His boot lashed out, kicking the man toward the wagon’s front.

  Outside, Loren could hear the sounds of ringing steel and men screaming death. The wagon’s canvas could not mute the screams. Loren feared she would hear them as long as she lived.

  Loren leapt up and threw off her cloak. Blood had soaked through it in places, and she could feel it pressing upon her skin. She stumbled past Gregor, who did not move a muscle.

  She lost her footing on the wagon’s edge and crashed to the ground on her shoulder. Pain lanced her chest. Loren scarcely noticed it as she rolled over onto her stomach and retched. She lost the night’s salted meat, thick and chunky, reeking of bile. She vomited until her stomach offered no more, and then lay unmoving save for her heaving chest.

  Loren had known death before. No one went forever without accidents. She had seen people crushed by falling oaks, or wasting away from infection after a wayward axe claimed a finger. But never had she seen a man murdered in cold blood, stabbed through the back.

  The sounds of death subsided. Gregor’s men had won before their foes knew of the battle. A half-dozen corpses littered the ground.

  Soft footsteps drew Loren’s gaze upward. Damaris loomed. Her dark eyes found Loren’s green ones.

  “Whose blood stains your tunic?”

  Loren looked down at herself and saw the crimson streaks.

  “Why would . . . they were King’s men!” Loren tried to stand, but wobbly knees soon made her think better.

  “Aye, and with noses too keen.”

  “They would not have killed me! They did only their duty!”

  Damaris’s brow crinkled for a moment, and she softly shook her head. “Oh, simple child. You think too highly of your worth to believe I played this hand for you. You are an amusing companion, but I do not risk the King’s wrath for mirth alone.”

  Loren finally found the strength to stand and slowly gained her feet. Gregor appeared by his lady’s side in a blink. His blade lay bare and dripping blood. Loren swayed backward to lean against the wagon.

  A quiet, persistent voice screamed in the back of her mind, growing ever louder. Soon, she could make out the words: Mennet, Nightblade, Mennet, Nightblade, Mennet, Nightblade, you fool.

  “For what, then?” said Loren. “For your hidden panels and your packets of brown cloth? What do you judge worth these lives—lives of men you did not know, who may leave widows or orphans behind?”

  Damaris rolled her eyes. In that gesture, Loren saw a wealth of dismissal, a wide ocean of scorn and embarrassment. “The nine lands make widows and orphans of us all in the end. Nine lands are the rule, and joyous folk the exception. Not needless do we spill blood, I said—but I did not say we feared to, or had not before.”

  Loren blanched. “What of me, then? Do you mean to send me to the dark forest with them?”

  Damaris shrugged. “Why should I?”

  Loren did not know what madness seized her, but she needed to understand the manner and meaning of what had happened. “I have seen this.” She gestured around at the soon to be rotting bodies, unable to look. “How could you let me live, fearing that I might reveal today’s deeds?”

  “Do you mean to?” Rather than fear or anger, Damaris displayed only faint amusement.

  Loren said nothing.

  “Your wisdom is, again, a welcome surprise. If you think you could report this to the King’s law and escape justice, you are sorely mistaken. These men died, in part, to keep safe my cargo. But, too, they died to protect you in your flight from the constables. You would face the block for that, and find your own way to the dark forest apace. None who walk shaded from the law may withstand its burning light.”

  Loren shuddered to hear the ghost of her own thoughts on the merchant’s tongue.

  “Now, come,” Damaris continued. “I tire of this argument and its lack of purpose. You will help rid the ground of this . . . mess. Gregor will instruct you.”

  Loren’s knees grew weak. “Me? I do not . . . I could not.”

  “Oh, not alone,” said Damaris. “Gregor’s men will manage the bulk. But you will help and learn something of value. Who knows but that you will need to dispose of a mess or two yourself one day—you will find it no worthless skill.”

  Words of denial, of protest leapt to Loren’s mind. Nightblade did not murder. Nor would she. But those words died under Damaris’s steely glare. Instead, Loren bowed her head. And when Gregor summoned his men and set them to drag the corpses off by their limbs, Loren walked beside them.

  She watched lifeless heads bounce against the ground. The constable’s face pinched thin and reedy, reminding Loren of a squirrel. A thin, pathetic mustache clung to his upper lip—and that lip sat drowned in blood, probably summoned by the man’s dying coughs. His chest lay open, and slimy ropes trailed behind him in the dirt. The others wore simple clothes, no uniforms. One of Gregor’s men, too, had been killed. Bodies numbered eight in all.

  Gregor�
��s men dragged them all into the woods. Loren felt grateful she did not have to help. But once safely ensconced in the trees, the giant’s men set about with shovels and made Loren work as well. The summer sun soon invited a stench, and she retched twice more before they finished. The bodies they covered with loose dirt and a blanket of leaves, but only after the men were stripped of coin. Other valuables they left in place; it seemed that the men held themselves higher than grave robbers, at least.

  Just before Loren had covered the last corpse, the thin clipping of hoofbeats rang out through the tall trunks. She looked up to see Damaris atop her brown steed. Gregor went to her side and claimed the reins as his lady dismounted. Damaris did not hesitate for a moment, but only made her way to Loren with something under her arm.

  “Come now, and try this on. I think you will find it your size. It will serve you well, and costs more than a forester’s daughter might earn in a lifetime.”

  Damaris presented the garment under her arm and unfurled it. A black cloak fluttered in the afternoon breeze. Had Loren not been bone-weary with gravedigging and soul-sick from rotting bodies, the sight might have turned her breathless. The cloak shone fairly with fine cloth and shimmered with the sun. Each fold caught and absorbed a ray of light, never appearing brighter but only growing darker. Its cowl stretched long, able to draw down almost to the wearer’s chin.

  Loren stood immobile. Damaris stepped forward and draped the cloak around Loren’s shoulders. Then she came around the front again and drew the cowl up. The cloak rested on Loren’s shoulders like a cloud, the cowl at once warm and pleasantly airy. A light breeze brushed its lips on the back of her neck.

  Now I am cloaked in shadow. Like Mennet, but with blood on my hands.

  “There,” said Damaris. “It fits as though I had cut it for you myself. And you can hide that needle at your waist again.”

  Loren’s cheek filled with red, her hand leaping to the forgotten dagger.

  Loren saw Gregor at the corner of her vision. The captain looked poised to leap at a moment’s notice. But she knew he would not be able to move fast enough. Loren could draw the dagger and lay Damaris’s throat open before the guard could take his first step.

  But she would not. Nightblade does not murder. That was the today’s only victory, and Loren would not lose her grip upon it.

  Damaris relaxed. Her hand rose without warning, the backs of her fingers trailing against Loren’s cheek. She looked into the merchant’s eyes in wonder. Steel still showed there, it was true, but Loren saw something else: a keen affection, a softening just around the pupils that spoke of concern.

  “Do you think I enjoyed what happened?” said Damaris. “You wrong me. One must do what one must. You will know this, too, if you spend much longer in this world. You will understand, and perhaps see me as wise instead of monstrous.”

  If you spend much longer in this world.

  Loren felt she might lose her gorge again. She pictured vomit splashing across Damaris’s pretty leather boots.

  Damaris gave her a final, gentle pat on the cheek. “Do not trouble yourself overmuch. Let this flow over and through you, occupying your thoughts as it must. Then let it run away.”

  She turned and went back to her horse, mounting and riding swiftly away. Loren rounded on the men behind her. Graves lay filled beneath a blanket of leaves. She stared at the turned earth with a vacant stare, imagining the dead eyes now in the ground.

  She dropped her shovel and turned for the caravan. A cloak of shadows rippled in her wake.

  twelve

  From that moment on, Loren trained her eyes for an opportunity to escape. But Gregor hounded her like a shadow, never away from his eyes. It seemed that Damaris did not trust Loren after all, despite her kind manner.

  Her only solitude came when she went to the woods to make water. Only then did Gregor let Loren leave his sight. The first time, she kept going into the woods, hoping to fade away and leave him behind. But after a few yards she saw one of Gregor’s guards between the trunks, eyes fixed upon her.

  They traveled south through the day. Though her mind raced to determine what Damaris could want from her, Loren could think of nothing.

  Once they stopped for the night, Annis appeared as if from nowhere. Her manner seemed airy, light, unreal. “Unpleasant, that business this morning. Wouldn’t you say?”

  Loren paid the question no mind, hoping to ignore the girl altogether.

  “Still, we made good time,” she continued. “And at least you need not fear my mother turning you in to the constables for a bounty. I think we have well moved beyond such distrust.”

  Loren looked over her shoulder. Gregor still stood nearby. He did not react to her gaze, holding his stony eyes forward.

  “What do you want?” Loren hissed.

  “Want? Why, whatever do you mean?”

  “Leave me alone,” said Loren, adding poison to her tone. “I wish nothing to do with you.”

  Loren stalked off into the night, looking for a place to lay her head. Mercifully, Annis let her go. At last she found a spot on the open ground, with guards in plain sight at a distance, and laid her head upon a mound of dirt. It took her a long while before she could get sleep to agree, and during the night Loren often woke to terrifying dreams of a sword in her chest.

  The next day turned bleak, with heavy grey clouds like a blanket over the sky.

  Unusual weather for summer.

  Loren’s thought came dead and hollow, from a distant part of her mind. A forester’s daughter should heed the change in weather, but this heartsick girl could not find it in herself to care.

  Annis left her alone as they traveled, but after another day’s slow journey the girl reappeared. This time, she simply sat without invitation or request, plopping down beside Loren’s tidy fire.

  She wanted to snap at her, to shout, to tell the girl to get away, but she dared not. What if Annis took insult? Would Damaris have Loren killed and dragged off to the woods, to join the constable in feeding the forest floor?

  So Loren listened as Annis chattered nonsensically about this and that and the roads she had traveled since leaving the High King’s Seat. Before long, Loren wanted to shake the girl until her silly head rolled from her shoulders.

  The evening wore on and on. Still, Annis showed no signs of slowing her speech. As the sun’s last light kissed the horizon farewell and Loren longed for sleep, Annis scooted closer and grasped her wrist with a smile.

  “Might you tell me another tale of Mennet? He sounded a wondrous man, and I’d wager you know more of him than just what you told me.”

  Loren hesitated. She had no wish to tell a story, but anything seemed preferable to more of the girl’s babbling. And mayhap a story of Mennet would calm her mind. She felt ragged after a day of looking over her shoulder, forever wondering if each moment might be her last.

  Loren knew one thing above all else: She must escape as soon as possible. Damaris must have something planned for her, and Loren had no wish to learn of the scheme. She would find her flight, and bide her time, until then.

  The fire had burned low. Pushing up to her knees and finding more wood for the flame, Loren thought at last of a tale.

  “Shall I tell you of the time Mennet bent iron with cloth?”

  Annis looked at her askance. “You must jest. Cloth cannot best iron.”

  Loren fanned the flames, watching the orange glow paint the girl’s chubby features. “But best it he did. One day, Mennet found himself within a King’s dungeon. The King knew of Mennet’s cloak of shadow, and thus he bade his jailer to line every inch of the wall with torches. Without darkness to hide him, Mennet’s escape seemed hopeless.”

  Annis sat forward. “They trapped Mennet?”

  “Trapped, yes, but not for long. Mennet had many years ahead of him as the greatest thief in the land, and he would not let a Wizard King stay him.”

  “A Wizard King?” said Annis, her voice cracking.

  “Yes, they still
ruled in those days, many years and more before Andrian the Fearless outlawed them.” Loren reached into her bag to gather her supper.

  “But how could Mennet hope to stand against a Wizard King? They held a dark power, or so my tutor has taught me.”

  “They taught you well, but a dark power is nothing next to the power of darkness itself. And so they kept Mennet bathed in light. He inspected every corner of his cell, but the iron bars held firm. He could find no loose stone or crumbling mortar to aid his escape.”

  Annis remained perfectly quiet, leaning back only to wrap her arms around her knees. Loren paused for a moment to let the words sink in before she continued.

  “The Wizard King laughed to see Mennet search so earnestly for a way out. At last, he grew thirsty and begged a pitcher of water. The Wizard King—”

  “What was his name?”

  Loren frowned. “Whose?”

  “The Wizard King.”

  “He was . . . ” Loren thought hard, but could not for the life of her remember. “Bracken told me once, but I cannot recall.”

  “Why didn’t the Wizard King just kill Mennet? Why hold him prisoner, if he did not mean to kill him? And if he meant to kill him, why not do so at once?”

  Loren gave an exasperated snort. “If he killed him, how could he go on to become the most famed thief in all the land?”

  Annis folded her arms, stubborn. “Why would the Wizard King care about that? He should have killed him. I would have killed him.”

  Loren saw Damaris standing above the corpses by the wagons. Fear formed like a white-hot stone in her gut. Yes, Annis might have killed Mennet. The apple rarely fell far from the roots of its tree.

  She pressed on. “The Wizard King granted Mennet’s request. His guards fetched a pitcher of water and a wooden cup to drink with. Mennet gulped the water deep, and curled up in the corner of his cell, wrapping himself tight as though taken by a chill. The Wizard King soon left, bored by his newest toy.

  “Once alone, Mennet rose in silence. He pulled the tunic from his back and tied it around two of the iron bars that held him in his cell. Then he took one of his boots, made from hard leather, and pushed it through the tunic. He seized both sides of the boot and twisted as hard as he could. Round and round he turned the boot, until the tunic strained at the iron bars. The fabric stretched but did not break. Finally, the iron bars bent under the strain, just enough for Mennet to slip through. He donned his tunic again and slipped out the door.”