Shadowfall

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 M
eeryn’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 Ty
lar’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.”