Bound by Iron

Chapter TEN

The Empty Shell

Far, the 13th day of Sypheros, 998

Darkness had long since covered the sky, leaving the Ring of Siberys to shine like a trail of scattered silver dust. A few moons paraded slowly along the ring’s argent path, illuminating the Karrn River, the ship that lay at anchor, and the furtive figure that skulked through the darkness, evading the two sailors that paced the watch.

Carrying an unsheathed sword close to his side, he moved slowly, carefully, slipping by the watch to the ladder that led down to the foredeck cabins. He descended the ladder into the darkness below decks. At the bottom he looked about, then allowed himself a deep breath to steady his nerves.

He reached one hand into a pouch that hung at his belt and pulled out a small ceramic bead, aglow with a faint blue light. It was enough to navigate by, yet still so dim that it was unlikely to attract attention.

With this light, the figure shuffled down the corridor. He held the light close to each cabin door to see which number might be carved into the wood. At last he found the cabin he sought. He readied his sword and, with his hand still palming the bead, he slowly opened the door. The sound of steady glottal breathing spilled out of the room.

As the door swung open, he clenched his hand about the bead until only the faintest blush of light still shone. He slid in, angling toward the hammock where a bulky shape lay unmoving.

He leveled his sword, turning the blade’s angle to the vertical so that it would slide between the ribs, and thrust as hard as he could. The blade struck true, and for an instant he thought he had accomplished his goal, until he heard the unmistakable sound of steel striking against chain mail.

Then he heard a scream.

Minrah, sitting cross-legged in her billet, snapped out of her meditations at the sound of an impact. She saw the intruder in their cabin, saw the blade in his hands, saw him pull the weapon back from Cimozjen’s hammock.

Fear seized her, fear for her life ending abruptly with the sensation of assassin’s cold blade in her vitals. She shrieked and pushed herself away from the killer, mindless of the fact that she sat in a hammock. She backed into the wall, but her feet kept pedaling, pushing the hammock’s netting out from under her, and she tumbled backward, crying out again in surprise as she flopped into the lower bunk and then thumped to the floor.

Startled by her scream, the intruder scrambled away from her, striking his heel against Cimozjen, who’d been sleeping on the floor. The intruder fell backward, dropping his sword and his bead just as Cimozjen raised his arms to protect himself.

Hearing the clang of metal against the deck and an earthy curse from an unknown voice, Cimozjen pushed himself free of the stranger, rising to his hands and knees. He grabbed for his scabbard, but it was trapped beneath the stranger’s weight. In the dim blue light he saw the man grab his own sword again.

Cimozjen flopped onto his back, crab-walking to distance himself as the assassin took two wild swings. As the killer closed, Cimozjen thrust out with his feet and connected, slamming the assassin into the far wall of the small cabin. Cimozjen rolled and grabbed for his scabbard again, snatching it up and raising it just in time to block a downward chop. The intruder raised his blade for another strike, and Cimozjen shoved the scabbard upward, smiting the man in the loins. As he doubled over from the blow, Cimozjen thrust his scabbarded sword into the man’s gut, and then jammed his knee with a thrust of his foot.

Because he lay on the floor, his kick lacked the extra impetus of his weight behind it. His efforts were not rewarded with the sound of breaking bones, but he did manage to send the killer to the floor. Cimozjen rolled to his feet and drew his sword, holding his scabbard in his left hand as a potential shield.

“Why are you doing this?” asked Cimozjen.

The stranger likewise rose, though rather more slowly than Cimozjen. His face twisted with an unreadable mix of emotion. “Sorry,” he panted. “I can’t let you stop us!”

He charged again, whipping his blade through a pattern that, even in the dim light of the glowing bead, Cimozjen recognized as the Queen’s Best Sword Drill, or, as the Karrns mockingly called it, the Cyran Spin.

Cimozjen feinted an opening, then brought his sword around to parry the expected blow. Sparks flashed in the dimly lit cabin as the two weapons collided. Cimozjen struck with his scabbard, taking the intruder in the temple with the metal-reinforced sheath, then he spun and drew his sword across the man’s belly, taking a terrible slash. Spinning completely around, he lanced the stranger through the ribs with his sword, and the would-be assassin arched his back and slumped to the floor as Cimozjen yanked out his sword and took a few precautionary steps back.

“Who are you?” Cimozjen asked, his voice spurred by anger, indignation, and adrenaline.

Lying on his side on the floor, the man coughed wetly, and drew in a burbling breath. “Jewel of Khorvaire,” he gasped, “I can’t even kill an unarmed man anymore.”

Cimozjen grasped the Octogram pendant that hung from his neck. “Dol Arrah, favor your brother’s servant this day, and grant my prayer that you make your perfect face to shine upon my duty,” he said beneath his breath. The warm glow of the holy symbol suffused the room, its radiance drowning the pitiable blue light of the old man’s bead. Cimozjen kicked the man’s sword away from his twitching fingers and kneeled beside him.

The man’s breathing was labored and wheezy. Cimozjen turned him over, to find himself staring at the visage of a scarred human some six or seven decades of age. Blood colored his lips crimson, and his eyes stared at Cimozjen, filled with a heavy weight of regret and shame.

“My last … chance …” gasped the intruder. He clutched and pulled at his tunic with a hand tattooed with a crown and bell. A wretched slurping sound marked each breath he took. As Cimozjen watched, he could see the man’s voice box sliding a little to the left with each labored breath. As it moved, the old man’s breaths became shallower and shallower. He started to thrash and kick.

“Hang on, soldier. I’ll take care of you,” said Cimozjen, and he set to working his healing powers upon the man, a task made more difficult by the Cyran’s struggles. Gritting his teeth as he worked his way through his supplication, he forced the wounded man to lie flat on his back and clamped his hand over the man’s heart. A warm glow lit the room from within the man’s chest. It erupted out of his wounded abdomen, casting a reddish hue to everything. Nevertheless, the man’s esophagus continued to move to the side, displaced by over an inch and getting worse with each liquid breath. Cimozjen increased the speed of his litany and placed his hand over the man’s throat, trying to understand the injury.

The intruder moved his hand to touch Cimozjen’s wrist, interrupting his prayer of supplication. He tried to smile, but the expression was twisted by pain into a pastiche of camaraderie. He coughed once more, wetly, and bloodstained saliva covered his chin. “No,” he wheezed. He labored to draw a few last shallow breaths, then closed his eyes and whispered, “Seems I’d … just … embarrass myself.” He drew a last shallow, gasping breath, his legs kicking weakly, then he stretched his neck like a drowning man, his tongue protruding. His fingers clutched at Cimozjen’s wrist, the nails digging into his flesh.

“Hang on,” said Cimozjen through clenched teeth. He rattled off another prayer, speeding through the supplication as fast as years of repetition allowed.

With the second infusion of divine power, the man finally stopped struggling for air and relaxed. Then his tattooed hand slid slowly from his tunic to the floor.

Cimozjen sped through another prayer and pressed his hand on the man’s chest at the base of the neck, firmly, but this time the warm healing glow merely spread across the surface of the skin.

“Traveler’s treachery!” gasped Minrah, huddled into a small ball on the floor.

Cimozjen pulled the man’s clenched hand from his wrist. He stared at the dead man for a long moment. “What was that all about?” he asked quietly.

“I-that is, maybe-he was trying to kill us!” stammered Minrah. She unconsciously adopted Cimozjen’s furtive tone.

Cimozjen turned to look at her. “Your powers of observation are as acute as ever, Minrah.”

She pointed. “I saw-he stabbed you in your hammock.”

“At least he tried,” whispered Cimozjen. “Thank the Host I stashed our bags in my hammock. The question we need to figure out now is why he wanted to kill me.” He sat back on his heels. “Did you hurt yourself when you fell?”

“No, I don’t think so. No, I’m fine. Dash of luck, that.”

“Good.”

Minrah crawled out from beneath the hammocks and looked at the man, still clearly nervous. “So what’s that tattoo on the back of his hand?”

“The crown and bell? That’s the Queen’s Favor. Marks him as a twenty-year veteran of the Cyran army.”

“A Cyran? True enough, he talked like one.” She looked at his face. She glanced from side to side and whispered, “I’ve seen him around the ship, but he always seemed to keep to himself. You think maybe he owned that monster that you killed last night? That is, it looked like it might have come from the Mournland.”

Cimozjen tilted his head and scratched the back of his neck. “I rather doubt it,” he murmured. “If he did own it, I think he would have mentioned it. But he said he’d not let me stop him, and something about his last chance.”

“And that he’d have embarrassed himself,” added Minrah.

“What an odd thing to say,” said Cimozjen quietly. “Embarrassed? And he apologized. That’s strange.”

“You know what’s even stranger?” asked Minrah looking around. “No one’s coming to see what the ruckus was.”

Cimozjen cocked an ear. “True, but they are a rough lot, each mother’s son of them, and it was a fairly quiet combat, as combats go. Maybe they’re used to the sounds of fighting, or they think you just fell out of bed. Which, I might add, you did do.”

Minrah smiled sardonically. “I do believe you’re being far too generous with our fellow passengers.”

“Personally, I believe that an excess of generosity is not within the realm of possibility,” he said. “Still … what do you think?”

“I think maybe they’re all in on it,” she said, spinning her finger in a circle. “They’re all after us.”

Cimozjen narrowed his eyes. “If they were,” he murmured, “they’d have all come together. No need for secrecy. But it does appear that some of our fellow passengers have no concern for our wellbeing.”

He looked at the dead man. “Maybe lack of curiosity will work to our advantage, though. His body is healed of all visible injury. If no one’s about, we should be able to move it somewhere else, on deck or in another hallway. With the blood on his lips, maybe folks will think he died of consumption. I have an ill feeling of what might result should I be forced to answer to the commander for killing someone in my cabin, regardless of my innocence in the matter.”

“That’s a plan, then,” said Minrah. “Strip off his tunic. I’ll wipe up what I can of the blood and throw it in the river.”

“Right. The blood and sword holes would make folks suspicious.” Cimozjen stripped the man’s shirt off and handed it to Minrah, then, hoisting the man under one arm, slipped out into the hallway.

Minrah stared at the closed door. “And, uh, I’ll sit watch for the rest of the night, all right? Right.” She set to cleaning up, pausing to pick up the faintly glowing bead. She rolled it between her finger and thumb. “Well, that’s a fun trinket,” she said.

“Wake up, Cimmo.” Minrah nudged her companion with her foot. “A new day has dawned, and we’re on the Sound.”

“Mm?” Cimozjen rolled onto his back and groaned. “I’ll be glad to be off this ship,” he grumbled. “I know not what’s worse-sleeping in a hammock and ruining my back, or sleeping on the floor and having my shoulders be too sore to move.”

“Oh, quit your bellyaching and heal yourself up.”

“I’ll not do that,” he said. He pushed himself into a sitting position and roughly scratched his scalp.

“Why not?”

“First, it’s wrong to abuse the blessing of the Sovereign Host.”

“Oh, what do they care?” said Minrah. “You’ve got it, use it. You think they’d even notice?”

“Second,” said Cimozjen, “one never knows when a dire need might arise. Suppose I healed my shoulders, my stubbed toe, and a canker in my mouth, and then you were to fall down a ladder and break your leg? Hm? I bear my pain for you, Minrah, and the others whom the Sovereigns may send to me for help.” With a grunt, he pushed himself up and arose.

“Well, you need not bear it alone much longer, dear heart, for I just heard we’re going to dock at Throneport.”

“Throneport?” Cimozjen snorted. “Throneport may have mattered before the Last War. Now it’s nothing but a derelict township that feigns to bend its knee to an empty throne.”

“Oh, silly Cimmo, that’s not all it is,” said Minrah. “While there’s no longer a great king, Jarot’s hand remains. Throneport is a stronghold for the Sentinel Marshals.”

Cimozjen’s eyes brightened. “You’re right, it is,” he said. He ran one hand across his stubbly chin. “I’m sure they’d be interested to hear that the Silver Cygnet was smuggling dangerous beasts.”