Shadowfall

5

“I…I don’t know anything,” Tylar moaned, hating himself for the sob that racked through him.

“Again,” commanded the masklin-wrapped Shadowknight.

Tylar no longer had the strength to tense. He heard the crack of the whip, then felt the lancing sting as a long stripe of flesh was sliced to bone. His body jolted against the whipping post. The flesh on his wrists tore against the unforgiving iron. He hung by his manacles, looped over a hook high on the post, his toes brushing the dirt of the courtyard.

He was stripped to a loincloth. Blood ran down the back of his thighs and calves, dripped from his toes. Tears trailed through his sweat. He stared up at the full face of the lesser moon shining down on him.

He had lost count of the strokes. Eighteen lashes? He wasn’t sure. He had slipped away once, the pain driving him into oblivion. But a splash of cold water had mercilessly revived him, along with a crumpled cloth soaked in bitter alchemies shoved under his nose. Apparently it was rude to sleep during one’s own torture.

Dazed, he slumped against the post, lolling in his manacles. Crowds packed the courtyard stands to watch the spectacle. The trio of adjudicators sat in seats, a silver tray of pomegranates and kettle cakes beside them. The red-robed soothmancer stood at their side, arms crossed. At least he had the decency to look sickened. The group of black-draped Hands clotted in one corner, consoling one another in low whispers, barely noting the festivities.

And a festival it was. The balconies and parapets were crowded with lords and ladies of the high city, servants of the castillion, even some drabbed underfolk who must have bribed their way to a viewing seat. Laughter and shouts for more blood rang off the walls. Black ale flowed along with spiced wine. Somewhere a minstrel played bright tunes, while hundreds of bells rang from the lower city.

The Shadowknight, Darjon ser Hightower, leaned closer to his face, one gloved hand resting against the whipping post. “Tell us the truth, and your death will be swift.”

Tylar tasted blood on his tongue as he attempted to speak. “So you keep promising… but here I keep hanging, though I keep telling you the truth.”

The eyes of his torturer narrowed. “We’ve barely begun here. I can make this last more than a single night.”

Tylar closed his eyes. “You want the truth…?” He took a deep breath, though it pained him to do so.

Darjon bent nearer.

Tylar opened his eyes and spat with the last of his strength, catching the knight square in the face. “There is your truth!”

With a roar, the Shadowknight reared back. He waved an arm to the whipmaster.

The crack of flying leather answered, and Tylar was slammed into the post. His back flashed with fire, his agony darkening the world to a pinpoint. He did not fight it, but instead sank away.

Somewhere far off, he heard a shout. “Keep that up, y’art going to kill him.”

Tylar recognized Rogger’s voice. The thief, bound in ropes off in one corner, seemed to be his only defender. Of course, his pleas for clemency might be self-serving. Once Tylar confessed and was killed, Rogger was due to be impaled next to him, both destined to be bits of decoration for Meeryn’s tomb. So the longer Tylar held out, the longer the thief drew breath.

As Tylar drifted farther away, acrid vapors suddenly assaulted his nostrils. He struggled to get away from them, tossing his head. Cold water flooded over him, shivering over his flesh. He gasped as the world shook back into foggy focus.

He saw the healer’s face hovering at the tip of his nose. “Here he comes,” the man said, pulling away the crumple of stinking cloth. He glanced to Darjon at his shoulder. “He’s lost a lot of vital humour, ser. Next time I might not be able to revive him.”

Darjon swore. “The whip’s not loosening this one’s tongue anyway. We’ll try other tortures that aren’t so bloody. Cut him down!”

A guard rushed forward and unhinged the hook. As the manacles slipped free, Tylar’s body felt tenfold heavier. He collapsed, facedown, into the bloody mud under the post.

The healer dropped to one knee. “I could put some firebalm on his wounds. It stings mightily, but it’ll staunch the bleeding.”

“Do it! I won’t have him dying on us… at least, not yet.”

The healer rummaged in a satchel.

Darjon twisted a fist in Tylar’s hair and pulled his face up. Limned against the full moon, his countenance was entirely shadow. Only his eyes glowed with Grace. “Before this night ends, I will discover what you did to Meeryn.”

Tylar sensed Darjon’s ferocity. And something darker. There was more to this man’s determination than mere vengeance. While punishments could be cruel, torture was not the way of the Order. But Tylar was too tired to curse the man, so he told him the truth in his heart. “You… You disgrace your cloak.”

Darjon shoved him away.

The healer pulled free a tiny clay pot. “This will sting,” he said under his breath.

Tylar steeled himself, though it had done him little good so far.

The healer’s shadow fell over him. Fingers touched his shoulder. The spread of balm on his flesh did not burn. Not at all. Instead, it was like the sweetest nectar on the tongue, a soothing caress on a fevered brow.

Tylar moaned in relief, unable to keep it bottled in his chest. It was as if every scrap of torture-inflicted pain was being repaid in kind by rapturous pleasure. It rippled over his flesh.

A small surprised gasp escaped the healer. “By all the gods!”

“What?” Darjon asked, stepping around.

“He heals with just a touch of the firebalm.” The healer slathered his back with more salve as proof and demonstration. “Look how the lash wounds glow under the balm, and the skin closes over.”

As Tylar shuddered with the pleasure of the balm, Darjon stumbled back a few steps. “The glow…” He swept out with his shadowcloak to command attention. “It is Grace… the Grace stolen from Meeryn! Here is the proof we’ve sought all night! He heals with Meeryn’s own dying Grace!”

Despite the soothing touch of the balm, Tylar groaned.

Figures closed in to witness the miracle. Guards held off all but those who had been in the hall earlier. The adjudicators watched as the healer repeated his demonstration, treating the last of the lash marks. Sounds of amazement rose from those gathered.

A black-gowned figure fell to her knee beside Tylar. She raised her hands to her face, lifting her veil. She was ashen-skinned, her lips daubed black. “It’s blood Grace!” she gasped. “I would know it anywhere…”

Another of the entourage spoke, a man dressed also in black. He placed a hand on the woman’s shoulder and explained, “Delia was the maiden who handled Her Brightness’s blood.”

Tears rose in the young woman’s eyes. “It is indeed Meeryn!”

“Can there be any doubt of his guilt now?” Darjon said boldly. “I say we put him to more vigorous tests. Grind the truth from his very bones.”

Fervent agreement met his words. Only the kneeling woman looked confused. “Why does he bear her blood?” But no one heard her.

She was helped to her feet by the man who had spoken on her behalf. The crowd dispersed, making room.

Tylar turned.

Darjon led two men. One hulking fellow carried a stump of wood. The other, even larger than the first, carried an immense iron hammer.

As the stump was dropped in the mud at his feet, Darjon bent closer. “There is more than one way to break a man, Godslayer.”

In this instance, the knight was speaking literally.

“Undo his manacles. Drag his right hand onto the wood.”

Tylar balked, understanding what was intended. They meant to pulp him. He fought the guards as his manacles fell away. Not my sword hand. He had regained his dexterity only days ago. He had not even the chance to hold a hilt again.

“First the one hand, then the other, then we’ll start with your knees.” Darjon seemed to take particular delight in his prisoner’s thrashing, but Tylar couldn’t stop himself. It was not just the pain he feared.

“No!” he begged. “I’ve told you the truth.”

“Your own blood betrays you. What the whippings have hinted, the hammer will reveal.”

Tylar was too weak to resist. Two guards gripped his arm and thrust his hand atop the stump.

Darjon leaned closer. “Tell us how you slew her!”

“I didn’t-”

Even before he could finish, Darjon signaled the giant with the hammer. Swung from the shoulder, the fist of iron arced high and plunged down toward the stump and its pale target.

Tylar cried out. He heard Rogger do the same: “Agee wan clyy!”

The words made no sense.

Then the hammer struck. Tylar felt the rebound all the way up his arm. It shuddered past his shoulder and into his chest. A wave of agony followed on its heels. Blinding… a thousandfold worse than a single lash.

He screamed, arching back, his face bared to the moon overhead.

Then he felt something loosen deep inside. He had already pissed himself, and if he had anything to eliminate, he would have done it long ago. This was something deeper, something beyond bowel and flesh. He could not hold it back, even if he wanted.

From the black palm print on his chest, something dark wrested out of him and into this world. It gutted him, tearing out of his chest, taking all pleasure from him and leaving only pain.

The torment in his hand spread throughout his body. Other bones broke and reformed, callused, then broke again.

He screamed anew, as much in anguish as agony.

Somewhere far away, Rogger answered him: “Nee wan dred ghawl!”

In the heart of his torment, Tylar now remembered those words. Agee wan clyy… nee wan dred ghawl. Ancient Littick. Break the bone… and free the dark spirit.

His vision cleared somewhat. All he saw was the moon. His body was still arched back. Something rose from the center of his chest, a trail of black smoke against the bright moon.

Screams erupted around him.

The font of darkness climbed high, taking the last of his strength. Tylar collapsed back into the mud. The cloud took shape, still trailing a dark umbilicus to the black print on his chest, like some newborn babe to its mother.

The pain in his body ebbed. He tried to move, to crawl from the shadow above. He found his limbs uncooperative. One knee refused to bend, the other was slow to respond. His arms were no better. Tylar realized his state. He had returned to his broken form, unhealed. Even the freshly pulverized hand had returned to a mere claw of old, scarred bone.

He was back in his same crippled body.

A cry of despair escaped him.

He stared up at the apparition still linked to him. What had first appeared to be smoke now seemed more a pool of midnight waters, flowing and taking shape. Wings unfurled and a neck stretched out, bearing a beastly head of a wolf, maned in black flames. Eyes opened, shining like lightning, unquestionably Graced with tremendous power.

Those eyes glanced to him, narrowing dismissively, then away, out to the screaming folk fleeing in terror. The adjudicators and soothmancer had retreated under a phalanx of guards. Lords and ladies scrabbled with common folk to every doorway and gate. Several were trampled underfoot.

A squad of castillion guards, led by the same captain who had first named Tylar godslayer, rushed forward with pikes high and swords low.

“Kill the daemonspawn!” the captain yelled and chopped an arm through the air, a signal.

Archers let loose from the parapets, while longbowmen in the courtyard fired from bended knee. Bolts sliced through the air, passing into the beast and out the far side, aflame.

The burning arrows struck into the thatched barrack roofs and set straw to flame. Others shattered brilliantly against stone or hard dirt.

Tylar sought meager refuge behind the stump.

To their credit, the guards did not balk, continuing their headlong rush toward the shadowbeast. Swords flashed in the moonlight.

Black wings folded, and the beast, the size of a horse, settled silently to the yard to meet the attack. Pikes plowed into it first, but they fared no better than the arrows, spiking out the back of the creature, flaming like torches and crumbling to ash.

The shadow daemon reared up, snarling a spit of bright flame, and slashed out with its forepaws, catching the two nearest pikemen. With its mere touch, the men tumbled back, collapsing in on themselves, boneless yet still alive, mewling like misshapen calves born sickly.

Other guards fled from the horror.

Tylar had seen such foul work before… in Punt, upon the Shadowknights guarding Meeryn.

So had others.

The captain shouted a retreat. By now, those under the house guards’ protection had fled the courtyard. The captain’s eyes found Tylar, still hiding behind the stump. “Godslayer!” he shouted. “You show your true form at last!”

Tylar had no words to defend himself, not after what had ripped from his body, not after what now lay dying in the yard.

The guards retreated to the keep, forming a protective shield for those who had fled inside. In the center of the yard, the shadowbeast stalked before Tylar. Eyes afire with lightning watched all, wary.

It’s protecting me, Tylar realized. He stared down at the snaking black umbilicus that still trailed from Meeryn’s mark to the beast. I didn’t ask for this.

He waved a hand, trying to sever the connection, to push it away, but his fingers passed harmlessly through the cord.

“Tylar!” a new voice shouted, closer at hand. It was Rogger. The thief had freed himself from his ropes with a loose dagger. He pulled a muddy cloak over his bare shoulders while waving his dagger toward the main gates. “Tether your dog, and let’s get our arses out of here!”

Moving on instinct, Tylar gained his legs, hobbled as they were, and stumbled away from the castillion’s central keep. He headed toward the open gates. The few defenders still at their posts noted his approach and fled wildly, panicked, abandoning the gate. They had no desire to keep the daemon and its supposed master here.

As Tylar worked across the yard, the shadowbeast kept pace with him, only steps away, tethered in shadow.

One of the gate’s defectors loosed a lone arrow at Tylar, but the shadowbeast’s wing snapped out and turned the bolt to ash before it could strike.

Tylar hurried his pace, limping and shuffling across the yard.

As he neared the gate, a lithe form fled from the shelter of a doorway. A woman, draped in black, one of the Hands. Rather than running away, she fled toward Tylar and his beast, blocking his path.

“Stand back!” Tylar shouted, fearful of harm coming to the young woman. With her veil missing, Tylar had no difficulty recognizing her. It was the handmaiden who had knelt beside him earlier.

She came to a stop under the very shadow of the daemon. The beast hunched menacingly. Ignoring this threat, she slipped out a small glass jar, dark ruby in the moonlight and glowing with soft effulgence.

Tylar knew what she held.

A sacred repostilary.

She poured the humour from the jar into one hand and held it out toward the beast.

The creature reared up, wings sweeping out.

“Meeryn,” she whispered. “It is you, is it not?”

With a shudder, the daemon settled back down, stretching its neck toward the woman, seeming to sniff.

Tylar caught the faint whiff of summer’s bloom and bright sunshine. It was the bouquet of Meeryn, distilled within the repostilary.

The daemon dropped, kneeling upon its forelimbs, head bowed.

Delia reached with a hand, bloody and aglow with Grace. As her fingers touched the darkness, light flared out, coursing over the black surface of the beast like fire across an oily sea. The brilliant cascade crested over its body.

Tylar watched in amazement as the beast’s form lost focus.

As the scintillating wave finished with the beast, it fed along the only channel left open to it: the snaking umbilicus that led to Tylar.

It spiraled down the tether toward him. He stumbled away, trying to flee the fiery attack. But he could not escape.

The Grace-fed flames leaped the distance and struck him square in the chest. It felt like a mule kick. He flew backward, landing arse down on the dirt.

He rolled immediately to his feet, crouched, ready for another attack.

Delia remained where she was, eyes wide.

The daemon had vanished, vanquished with a touch.

Tylar stared down at his body. He flexed his sword hand. What was crushed under iron was new again. He was healed. Entirely and wholly. As if he’d never been injured.

He fingered the mark on his chest.

Something stirred deep inside, something too large to be held in a cage of bone.

The daemon.

It had not been vanquished, but simply returned to the hale body that was its roost.

Rogger reached them, panting. “I’d say from the looks of you that you’re fit enough for a bit of running. Something I think we should be testing ’bout now.”

Tylar glanced back across the courtyard. With the shadowbeast gone, the guards would not wait. Already shouts rose from the castillion guard. Tylar turned. Ahead the gate lay open and, for the moment, unguarded.

He pointed. “Off with us then!”

As they ran, the woman followed.

Tylar waved her off. “Begone. This is none of your concern.”

“No! Where you go, I go!”

“Why? What madness is this?”

“I don’t know how or why,” she gasped at him as she ran, “but you carry Meeryn’s blood in you. I saw it shining from your lash marks. And in the eyes of the winged creature, the glow of Grace… It was Meeryn, too!”

“And you would go with the man accused of her slaying?”

She countered, but less surely, “No man can kill one of the Hundred.”

Tylar shook his head and mumbled, “You could’ve voiced that sentiment earlier.”

Rogger laughed as he reached the gate. “That’s a woman for you. A fickle lot, the bunch of ’em.”

They passed under the empty archway, Rogger leading the way. The moonlit streets of the high city opened ahead. The thief pointed. “I have a few friends in Lower Punt who-”

Before he could finish, a fold of shadow fluttered from the archway to Tylar’s left. He caught a flash of silver slashing down toward him. He leaped headlong, reacting with old instincts. He landed in a roll and jumped back to his feet. He twisted around, now crouched in the cobbled streets outside the archway.

Rogger fled to one side, Delia to the other.

From the gate, a figure of flowing shadows stepped into the moonlight, forsaking its hiding place. The Shadowknight held a length of silver in his grip. His blessed sword.

Rogger swore. “It seems we bottled that beastie of yours a natch too soon.”

Tylar kept to the brightness under the moon, praying the knight’s shadow-borne speed would be dulled in the light. He waved the others back, but kept his eyes focused on the Shadowknight.

“Godslayer,” Darjon hissed, stepping forward. “At last the hammer revealed the truth you hid so well. You are no man! But I’ve seen you bleed-and what bled once can bleed again!”

Before Tylar could answer, the knight leaped with a fury-driven speed, fast even in the moonlight.

Tylar spun from the stroke. The stabbing blade passed under his arm, grazing his side with a slice of fire. He ignored the pain, continued to twist, and brought himself under the knight’s guard. He slammed an elbow into the knight’s midriff, knocking him back a step.

Darjon used the force of Tylar’s blow to fall backward, rolling cleanly in his shadowcloak and back to his feet, sword at the ready.

Tylar knew this was a battle he could not win. Though his bones had been healed, he was still weak from blood loss and fatigued from all that had transpired.

Darjon’s eyes narrowed above his masklin. His cloak billowed back to the waiting shadows. The edges of his form blurred as the Grace of shadow flowed into the knight, building toward a power that Tylar could not match.

Rogger noted the same. “Tylar! Here!”

From the corner of his eyes, Tylar spotted the flash of silver. The thief’s dagger. Without turning, Tylar lifted a hand and caught the flying knife. He flipped it to his other hand, keeping it low. A dagger was a poor weapon against the blessed weapon of a Shadowknight, but it was better than bare hands.

Tylar attempted to watch every muscle of his combatant, but shadowy Graces blurred lines and edges, fogging detail, making it difficult to anticipate an attack. Tylar had worn such a cloak for many years. It had been a second skin, as much a weapon as the sword.

But every weapon had a weakness.

Shadows built up behind Darjon, filling the archway. Beyond, shouts from the castillion guard grew louder. The stamp of boots hurried along the parapets, approaching fast. Darjon merely had to hold Tylar here for a few moments longer.

But the Shadowknight would not settle for such a victory.

Darjon leaped forward with a surge of shadows that made it hard to tell where darkness ended and form began.

Tylar squinted, aimed, and tossed the dagger with the full strength of his arm. It flew true, but shadows shifted out of the way, too swiftly. The flash of the small blade passed harmlessly over the knight’s shoulder and away.

Unchecked, Darjon continued his lunge, sword leading the way, propelled upon a wave of darkness.

A distant thunk sounded as the dagger struck wood.

Tylar allowed a grim smile to form as he hurdled straight back, the sword’s point scribing his chest.

Then the plunge of the blade simply stopped, jerked to a halt.

Darjon’s charge turned into an uncontrolled tumble. He landed hard on the cobbles, tangled in his own cloak, betrayed by the very weapon that served him.

His sword bounced from his fingers and skittered across the stone to Tylar’s toes. Bending, but never taking his eyes from the knight, Tylar retrieved the weapon.

Darjon twisted, staring back toward the archway as shadows collapsed around him, dissolving under the weight of moonlight. Impaled into the gate’s wooden frame was Tylar’s dagger-and pinned beneath the blade was a snatch of cloth, the edge of Darjon’s shadowcloak.

Still entangled, Darjon swore and tugged, attempting to free his cloak, but it held securely.

Blessed or not, cloth was cloth.

Horns blared stridently from the castillion walls and were answered from the courtyard.

Tylar backed away, carrying the knight’s sword. The diamond-hilted blade was granted to a Shadowknight upon receiving his third stripe of knighthood. It was bonded in blood to the wielder, a cherished emblem of the Order. Darjon would miss it as much as his own right arm. Tylar motioned with his stolen sword toward the empty streets. “The guards come swiftly. We must be away.”

Rogger and Delia closed the distance between them, and as a group, they fled the heights of Summer Mount.

Tylar led the way swiftly, slipping along alleys and narrows, heading down from the high city and into the lower. The night stretched ahead of them, but dawn could not be far.

Mourners still crowded the lower streets, ringing bells, lifting tankards of ale. Tylar and the others slid among them, becoming harder to track. Here, any word of daemons and escaped prisoners fell on drunken ears, deafened further by the countless bells.

Even the horns chasing them grew distant, their blaring cries slipping farther and farther behind. Tylar suspected more than one guard was happy to let them escape, unwilling to challenge a godslayer and the daemon he could summon.

As Tylar donned a cloak stolen from an ale-soaked mourner, Rogger spoke in quiet tones. “You should’ve killed that knight back there. He’ll not rest until one of you is dead.”

Tylar scowled, picturing the bald fury in the knight’s eyes. “Mistaken or not, the man was doing his duty. I will not cut him down in the streets for that.”

Rogger shook his head, scratching his beard. “You may live to regret such mercy.”

“I’ll settle for living until the morning.”

As they continued through the lower streets, a sharp cry drew Tylar’s attention to a side alley. His step slowed. It was a woman’s cry. Two large men clutched a girl between them, their rough intentions clear. She struggled, sobbing.

Tylar knew these assailants. Frowning, he glanced to the sign hanging above the neighboring door-the Wooden Frog.

It was Bargo and Yorga.

Rogger stood at his shoulder. “Why have you stopped?”

“Stay here.” Tylar strode into the alley, sword low. It was time someone put an end to this pair’s tyranny over the weak.

Yorga held the girl in a thick-armed hug, while his partner fumbled with the ties to his breeches. Bargo was having trouble, too drunk to make his fingers work. But he blearily noted Tylar’s approach. “Wait your turn,” he slurred thickly. “You can have ’er after we’re done.”

Tylar recognized the lass, one of the Frog’s tavern wenches, no more than sixteen. She met his eyes, terrified.

He moved from the alley’s shadow into a slice of moonlight, keeping his sword beside his leg. “Should I be jealous?” he asked, stepping around. “I thought those pinpricks of yours stiffened only for me.”

Yorga focused on him. His mouth opened. Without a tongue, he could only gurgle his surprise.

Bargo swung around, half-teetering. He had finally managed to free his waggling manhood, flopping at half-mast. His eyes traveled up and down Tylar’s form. “You! The… the scabber knight.”

Yorga shoved the girl away. She landed on her hands and knees, crawled a few steps, then jumped up and fled in tears.

The two Ai’men bunched together, filling the alley, blocking the exit.

“There’s no Shadowknight to protect you now,” Bargo grunted.

“No,” Tylar agreed and lifted the blade into view. “But I do have his sword.”

The brawlers paused, clearly recognizing the black diamond on the hilt.

He leaped at them, moving with a swiftness borne not of shadow, but of fury and retribution. If it weren’t for these two, he wouldn’t be in his current predicament. None of this would’ve happened. All he had wanted was a pint of ale to celebrate his birth year.

Bargo tried to swat his sword aside, but Tylar parried and stabbed at the man’s flesh. Tylar sliced where it would do the most good, proving there was more than one way to cut a man down.

Bargo yowled, falling to the side.

Tylar spun on a toe and slipped between the two brawlers. Yorga grabbed at him as he passed, but Tylar easily ducked, escaped the pair, and backed to the exit.

Yorga swung around as Bargo continued to moan, sliding down the wall.

Tylar waved his sword in clear warning at the tongueless man. Unless Yorga foolishly pressed, no more blood needed to be shed. As a knight, Tylar had been schooled to use his head as much as his sword.

Yorga was clearly subservient to Bargo, his lack of tongue binding him by need to his partner. And with Bargo’s brutality plainly fueled by lust, it required only one keen cut to end this pair’s tyranny, altering their relationship forever.

“I’ve found you a new tongue,” Tylar called to Yorga, pointing to the severed manhood lying in the alley’s filth. “I don’t think Bargo will be needing it any longer.”

Bargo clutched his groin, blood welling between his fingers. Yorga stood, dazed.

“You’d best look after your friend,” Tylar finished and joined Rogger and Delia in the street. Horns could be heard in the distance. “Let’s go.”

Rogger glanced a final time down the alley. “Remind me never to get on your sour side.”

After another stretch, the trio left the streets and pushed into the black warren that was Punt. It greeted them with its reek, dark laughter, and sudden cries.

“You have friends down here?” Tylar asked Rogger.

“Aye… as well as anyone could have friends in Punt.”

Delia slunk closer to them. Dressed in her finery, she was as out of place as a diamond in a sow’s ear. Throughout their long flight, he had tried to get her to flee, to head back to Summer Mount.

Her answer was always the same: “I have nothing back there. All I cherish is tied to you.”

He hadn’t pushed too hard. He had a thousand questions he wanted answered, and she seemed to know more than she let on.

But the handmaiden wasn’t the only one with secrets.

Tylar watched as Rogger led the way now, heading toward whatever low friends he knew down here. He remembered the thief’s shout as his sword hand was pulped under the hammer, repeating words supposedly spoken by himself in ancient Littick.

Agee wan clyy… nee wan dred ghawl.

Break the bone… and free the dark spirit.

After what happened, the truth of those words could not be denied. There was clearly more to this bearded thief than lice and larceny.

Rogger wended down byways and crawl throughs. Here the walls ran thick with black mold, and the buildings tilted drunkenly. Windows, when not broken, were shuttered tight against the night. The trio had to fight through piles of refuse, chasing rats and dire vermin from underfoot. The air reeked of fetid humours, blood and bile of every ilk.

As they marched, Delia paled even further. With her black-daubed lips and dark hazel eyes, she looked like some risen ghoul, fresh from the grave. Her dress was soiled and clung heavily to her. She had long shed her lace cap, revealing black hair, lanky and loose to her shoulders.

Occasionally some scabber would spy at them from afar, but Tylar kept his sword in plain sight. None could mistake the weapon… nor the stripes on his face.

Let them think me a knight if it will hold the worst at bay.

But Tylar suspected there was a clearer reason they passed the narrows unmolested. The underfolk had an uncanny ability to pass information from one mouth to another. The creatures of Punt knew a godslayer walked their streets and stayed away.

Delia spoke at his side, her voice soft and concerned. “Are you hurt?”

Tylar glanced to her as he walked, the confusion plain on his face. Was she asking if there were any repercussions from his torture?

“You’re limping,” she said, nodding to his gait. “And hunched oddly.”

Tylar straightened. Distracted, he hadn’t even noticed himself falling into old patterns, moving as if his body were still broken. He continued onward, forcing himself to walk more evenly.

Rogger cocked an eyebrow at him. “Your bones may be healed, but I ’spect it’ll take a bit longer for your mind to catch up.”

Tylar scowled and waved him onward.

At last, Rogger ducked along a dark alleyway and marched up to a low door made of rusted iron. “Here we are.” He knocked.

A small window opened, enough to peer through.

“Show yourself,” a dark figure spat at them.

Rogger turned, lifted the edge of his pilfered cloak, and bared his naked arse to the doorman.

Delia covered her mouth at such a rude introduction.

Rogger, still bent over, noted her response. “Have to prove I’m a thief.”

Tylar recalled the sigil branded on the man’s buttock. A sliding bolt scraped, and the door swung open on oiled hinges.

“What is this place?” Tylar asked.

“Guildhouse of the Black Flag,” Rogger answered, straightening and covering himself.

“Black Flaggers?” Delia lowered her hand. “Scuttlers and pirates? These are your friends?”

Rogger shrugged. “Now’s not the time to be choosy, my dear. We need a way off this island.”

Tylar couldn’t argue with that.

“Besides, I’m owed a favor here.”

“A favor?” Tylar asked.

Rogger waved a hand. “From another life, ser knight… one life among many.” He glanced significantly at Tylar. “Truly, who lives only one life?”

Tylar motioned with his sword. “Let’s get this done.”

Rogger climbed down a narrow passage, surprisingly clean. Tiny braziers blazed merrily at corners, scented with thyme and honeythistle to drive away the worst of Punt’s odors.

After crossing several side passages, the main chamber opened at the end of the corridor. A pair of men, faces blackened by ash, flanked the entry. They dwarfed Bargo and Yorga, clearly loam-giants, young men blessed in the Grace of loam. They leaned on heavy axes, looking bored, but Tylar knew how swiftly such giants could move.

Rogger nodded to them, good-naturedly. They followed his passage as if he were a scrabbling ant.

The same could not be said for the room’s lone occupant. A voice boomed from beyond a desk. “Rogger! I can’t believe it!”

A tall figure rose, dressed in a fine cut of black leather, from boots to cap. The man’s face was ash blackened, a custom among the Flaggers, making them harder to identify, even among their own guild.

But no one could mistake this pirate. His hair was snowy white from years of salt and sun. The length was knotted and hung over one shoulder, striking against his black leathers.

Rogger pulled on his beard and crossed to shake the man’s hand. “Krevan! It is good to see that no shear has come within a lick of you! Before long you’ll be tripping over that rat’s nest.”

“The same could be said of that beard of yours.”

They clasped hands.

The sun-crinkled eyes of the pirate traveled past Rogger to Tylar and Delia. “I see you brought the godslayer with you.”

Tylar started, his fingers tightening on his sword.

Rogger merely shrugged.

Krevan released the thief’s hand with a short laugh. “Then again, you always kept the strangest companions. I remember that blood witch from Nevering who-”

“Please!” Rogger interrupted. “There is a lady present.”

“Of course.” Krevan broke into a soft smile, gentle and respectful. “My lady, be welcome.”

Delia offered the smallest curtsy.

Rogger opened his mouth, but Krevan cut him off with a lifted hand.

“Yes, a boat. I know. Arrangements are already under way.

The Flaggers know how to repay a debt, even one owed as long as yours. But…?” His smile faded into harder lines.

Rogger nodded. “To cross ships downline, many palms will need pressing.”

Krevan sank back to lean on his desk.

“We have this sword to trade,” Tylar said, stepping up.

Rogger shook his head at the offer.

Krevan leaned back. “He is amusing. Wherever did you find him?”

Rogger shrugged. “Dungeons.”

“Ah, same as the blood witch.”

The thief scratched his beard thoughtfully. “You’d be surprised what can be found abandoned with the rats and chains.”

Tylar flipped the sword hilt up. “What about this diamond on the pommel? It must be worth a handful of gold marches.”

Krevan sighed. “Aye, but you’ll need ten times that to press the proper palms.”

Tylar’s eyes widened.

Rogger explained,“To silence the passage of someone of… well, of your reputation, does not come cheaply. We’ll need to hide your trail in gold.” He turned to Delia. “But luckily we brought with us something of considerable worth.”

Delia paled and backed up a step.

Tylar put up a protective arm. “I will not trade in flesh.”

Rogger raised an eyebrow. “Do I look a slave trader? Remember I’m a thief… specializing in certain sacred objects.”

Tylar suddenly understood, remembering what Rogger had been caught stealing in Foulsham Dell. “Repostilaries.”

Delia gasped, growing even more pale.

Tylar remembered the crystal vial she had used to douse her hand and send the daemon back inside Tylar. A repostilary bearing the blood of Meeryn.

“I cannot give it up,” Delia said, clutching the vial hidden in a pocket over her heart. “It holds the last drops of her blood.”

“Can you just imagine its worth?” Rogger said to Krevan. “The blood of a dead god?”

The pirate’s eyes had grown large, plainly yearning for such a prize. “The price it would fetch among the Gray Traders…”

“Enough to book passage safely away?” Rogger asked.

Krevan slowly nodded, unblinking.

Delia still clasped tightly to the pocketed vial.

Sighing, Tylar knew the trade was the only way. “I’m sorry,” he whispered to her. “But if we’re to ever solve the mystery of what’s inside me… ever to learn the truth about Meeryn, we’ll all have to pay a stiff price.” He parted his cloak to reveal the black palm print. “If you would serve your god still, then it must be done.”

She closed her eyes and bowed her head. Her fingers reached into her pocket and removed the single repostilary. She held it out to Rogger.

He gently took it and passed it to Krevan, who handled it as if it were the most precious jewel.

“I will arrange everything,” the pirate said. He held the vial up to the flame of a wall torch. Fingers gently touched the crystal. Oddly, tears rose in his eyes. His next words were softly spoken but as hard as iron. “If I thought you had really slain Meeryn, Tylar de Noche, you would not be walking out of here.”

Krevan rose and crossed to a glass cabinet shelved with books, a few scrolls, and several boxes.

As he hid away the repostilary, Tylar whispered to Rogger, “Can this fellow be trusted?”

The pirate heard him. “I am not the one who broke my vow. I know how to swear an oath.” Krevan turned back to the torchlight and used his wrist to rub at the corner of an eye, smearing away the ash.

Three dark stripes were tatooed on his skin, the same as on Tylar’s face.

Tylar choked on his words. “You… you’re a knight.”

Krevan turned away. “Rogger, take your guests to the east wing. They can rest until the morning tide, when your boat will be leaving.”

Rogger waved them back toward the two loam-giants.

Tylar whispered to Rogger. “A fallen knight heads the Black Flaggers?”

Rogger glanced back to the tall figure. “Who said he had fallen?”

Tylar cast a sharp look at the thief.

“Not every knight breaks his vow,” Rogger said firmly, staring Tylar in the eye. “Some simply walk away.”

With his brow pinched in thought, Tylar left the room, bearing more questions than when he entered. He had thought himself wise, but now he felt like a swaddling babe, new to the world.

As the sun rose over the Summering Isles, Tylar stood at the rails of the deepwhaler. The ship had ridden the tide out and now swept toward the deeper seas. At midnight, they were to change ships in the waters off Tempest Sound, then again at Yi River, hoping to shake any hunters from their trail.

A scrape of boot heel sounded behind him. Rogger stepped to the rail. He looked a new man, in the fresh clean clothes of a whaler and his beard neatly trimmed.

He noted Tylar’s attention and ran a hand through his clean beard. “That Delia knows a thing or two about brushes and shears. Makes me almost want to lead a better life.”

In silence, the pair watched as the ship escaped the morning fog and sailed under open skies. Behind them, the misty isles appeared ghostly, more a dream of land than real.

“What now?” Tylar asked.

Rogger shrugged.

Delia was belowdecks, ill already from the roll of the ship in the swells. She had refused to remain behind, casting her fate along with Tylar, sensing in him a way to still serve her god. Tylar wasn’t sure why he had allowed her to come. It was something in her eyes, a pain and longing he could not deny.

Rogger’s motivation for accompanying them had been far simpler: “I have nothing better to do.” Sentenced as a pilgrim, he had been punished to wander the lands until he had collected all the branded sigils. But now, tied to the story of the godslayer, he figured his best chance of survival was to “walk beside the fellow with the big black daemon.” Still, despite his flippancies, Tylar sensed Rogger, like Delia, left much unspoken and unexplained.

Like that snippet in ancient Littick.

Tylar repeated it now, fingering his chest. “Agee wan clyy nee wan dred ghawl.”

“Break the bone,” Rogger whispered to the waves, “and free the dred ghawl, the dark spirit. I think that’s an apt enough description of the beastie.”

“What was it? A daemon? Some naether-spawn? Its attack was similar to the creature that killed Meeryn and her Shadowknights.”

“Outward appearances can fool the eye. As you well know, Godslayer.” He stressed the last word but offered nothing more.

The silence grew heavy between them.

Sighing, Tylar flexed his sword hand and held it up. “Break the bone,” he mumbled, switching to the first part of the phrase, to something easier. “What about that?”

“Aye, it seems I was right back in the dungeon. Clyy means bone, not merely body. The dred ghawl appeared only when the bones of your hand were crushed, not while you were whipped to the edge of your life. I find it interesting that Meeryn healed all your bones at the same time she blessed you with the spirit creature. It was as if she had made a cage out of your healthy bones, requiring only one crack, one broken bone, to set it free.”

“Leaving me crippled again until it returned,” he added sourly.

“There’s always a price… I seem to recall you saying that to young Delia earlier.”

Tylar shook his head. So much remained a mystery. Again silence settled around them. The deepwhaler caught a stiffer breeze, sails swelling. The islands faded behind them, sinking into the horizon.

After a long while, Tylar quietly asked, “Do you think we’ll make it?”

“Not a chance,” Rogger answered, pulling a pipe from a pocket.

Tylar turned, leaning an elbow on the rail.

Rogger filled his pipe from a pouch of blackleaf. “Don’t look so surprised. The Summering Isles will never let you rest. That Shadowknight, Darjon ser Hightower, will hunt you throughout the Nine Lands. And then there are all those other gods out there. Ninety-nine, at last count. They’re not going to let the murder of one of their own go uncontested. They’ll pool all their Graces into finding you. But even they’re not the worst threat.”

“What do you mean?”

Rogger paused to light a taper from a lamp on the deck, then set the flame to his pipe, puffing in and out until he had a good fire to the leaf.

“What could be worse than vengeful gods?” Tylar asked.

Rogger perked one brow. “Whoever really slew Meeryn, of course. The true godslayer. He’ll need you dead lest you prove your innocence. And whoever could kill a god…?” He shrugged and chewed on his pipe, leaving the obvious unsaid.

He could surely hunt a lone man.

“So what do you plan to do?” Rogger finally asked, eyeing him.

Tylar rubbed his brow. “The only thing I can, I guess.”

“What’s that?”

“Follow the one clue left to me. Meeryn’s final word.”

Rogger glanced to him. “Rivenscryr?”

He nodded. “Meeryn healed me, gave me a daemon to protect me. All to deliver one word, a riddle I must solve if I ever hope to prove my innocence.”

“So where are we headed first?”

“To a place where I’m even less welcome than those cursed islands.” Tylar turned his back on the Summering Isles and stared far to the north, half a world away. “To Tashijan… the Citadel of the Shadowknights.”