TWIN COLUMNS OF HORSEMEN, clad in burnished steel and draped in iron-hued cloths, wound along the highway, a single armored centipede scurrying across rolling coastal hills. Every tabard, every shield, sported the hammer-and-anvil emblem of the Blacksmiths’ Guild—as though the sheer quantities of quality armor and mail weren’t evidence enough of that particular loyalty. Although they moved at a stately, even staid, pace, the drumming of a hundred hooves shook the earth, melding with the distant waves into a single endless, rolling percussion. The ocean’s tang filled every visor, and each soldier knew with a sinking certainty that, though his armor gleamed brilliantly now, he would spend many an hour this evening polishing and scraping, lest the coming rust dig too deep.
Between the columns rolled a carriage-and-four, rumbling and thumping over every rut in the road. It, too, was painted iron grey, and it, too, bore the hammer-and-anvil. The driver, a narrow-faced, leather-clad man with sandy hair, held the reins idly in one hand, content to allow the horses to set their own pace. Beneath him, the passengers were concealed from view by curtains of golden cloth.
Another rise, another dip in the road, and the column drew to a halt as the men took stock, their destination finally in view. For most, who had never been so far from Mecepheum, nor come anywhere near the sea, the sight of Braetlyn was an exotic wonder.
Sprawled along several miles of meandering coast, the province consisted primarily of fishing towns. Trade and travel flowed constantly among them, by land and by sea, and those largest communities in the center had begun to meld, early signs of what might one day sprout and blossom into a sizable city. Many a sail fluttered and flapped out atop the waves, nets draped over the sides. The scents of an economy based largely on the fish caught by those nets, day after day, staggered several of the riders like a physical blow.
Above it all, perched atop a low hill, watched a sturdy keep of old stone, surrounded by a palisade of sharpened stakes. From its towers flapped the peculiar ensign of Braetlyn, the crimson fish on a field of blue too dark to accurately portray the sea it was intended to evoke.
The polite thing to do—the safe thing to do—would be for the riders to wait, perhaps after announcing themselves with a trumpet blast, for knights of Braetlyn to come and escort them the rest of the way. Instead, after their moment of examination had passed, the soldiers of the Blacksmiths’ Guild resumed their march, wending their way into Braetlyn proper.
Citizens poured from their homes, unaccustomed to visitors making so grand, so ostentatious—and indeed, so militant—an entrance. Faces roughened by life in the sun and by the salty spray of the sea stared at the armored forms and the carriage they escorted. On the fishermen, the craftsmen, the carpenters, and the bakers, those faces twisted into expressions of distrust, and occasionally even fear. The local men-at-arms, however, showed little expression at all, despite the caravan’s failure to await a proper escort. Some even looked happy to see the new arrivals, and none wore the crimson-and-blue tabard of their supposed home.
Ignoring them completely, the columns followed the road up the final hillside, halting before the drawbridge and the gates—the lowered drawbridge, and the wide-open gates—of Castle Braetlyn.
Here, and only here, a quartet of armored guards wore Braetlyn’s ichthyic ensign. Three sets of gauntlets clenched tightly on three gleaming halberds, while the fourth knight approached the newcomers. His salt-and-pepper beard was clearly visible, for he carried his red-plumed helm beneath one arm.
“None may enter Castle Braetlyn under arms,” he announced, his voice calm but loud enough to carry over the constant song of the sea.
“Out of the way!” one of the armored horsemen snapped. “We’re here to see—”
“I know who you’re here to see,” the knight replied, offering the mounted soldier a withering glance before returning his attention to the carriage. “There’s only one person here to see. You still shall not enter under arms.”
“You’ve no right to stop us, you—!”
“Sergeant!” The carriage door drifted open, allowing a sharp, commanding voice to emerge from within. “We are guests here, and we will behave as such.”
The horseman grumbled something under his breath, seeming determined to bowl the knight over with the force of his glower alone, but nodded curtly.
The woman who stepped from the carriage was as broad of shoulder as many of the guards ostensibly sent to protect her, and her bare arms were corded with muscle. Her dark hair, wearing just a few streaks of grey, was pulled tightly back in an unflattering bun, and she was clad, not in formal gown or finery, but in a sleeveless tunic of emerald green and leggings of heavy wool. She carried under one arm a small wooden box, latched with an ungainly padlock, and from her thick neck hung an iron pendant: a hammer-and-anvil that did not quite form the ensign of the Blacksmiths’ Guild nor quite the holy icon of Verelian the Smith, but something in between.
“Lady Mavere,” the knight of Braetlyn greeted her, and if there was any resentment in the clench of his jaw, he managed to banish it from his voice. “You are, of course, always welcome.”
“You are too kind, sir knight.” With a gesture, she waved the driver down from atop the carriage. “You needn’t fear for your lord’s safety,” she assured the soldier. “My assistant and I will see him alone. My men will remain outside.”
“With the rest of your mercenaries,” one of the other gate guards muttered, just loud enough to be overheard. The elder knight, and the emissary of the Blacksmiths’ Guild, both pretended not to notice.
“Is my lord Jassion expecting you?” the knight asked instead.
“I’m sure he is, since one of you surely informed him of our presence as soon as we crested the hill.”
A scowl was all the response he offered. “Very well. Follow me, please.”
“Isn’t it astounding,” the driver whispered to Lady Mavere as he fell into step behind her, “just how much ‘please’ sounds like ‘bugger right off’?”
In the presence of the elder knight, she was too much the diplomat to grin.
Scattered around the edges of the courtyard, and framing every doorway, stood marble nudes that were either exquisite replicas of Imphallion’s classical style, or just perhaps actually dated back to lost antiquity. Impossibly beautiful women reached with beckoning hands, overly muscled men clasped leaf-bladed swords, and all watched the newcomers with empty stone eyes. A few of the statues were not standing at all but lounged supine, draped across the edges of the stairs, leaving just enough room between them to approach the inner keep’s doors. Mavere, impressed despite herself, could only wonder just how deep the baron’s fascination with Imphallion’s lineage and antiquity might run.
Yet the rest of Castle Braetlyn was not so well kept as were those magnificent sculptures. The structure flaunted its infirmity, an aging warrior who knew his best days were long behind him but dared anyone else to tell him to his face. Flaking mortar had been hastily patched, entire bricks replaced, and the brass chandeliers within the entry hall were polished well enough to shine, but not to remove the verdigris and tarnish that had long since set in. It was not the wear of true neglect so much as signs of a slapdash effort by servants who knew that they were hideously outnumbered in their battle against the castle’s many years.
Servants in crimson-and-blue livery stepped aside for the knight and his two charges to pass, bobbing their heads in quick respect to the former but glaring from beneath heavy eyelids at the latter. The Lady Mavere, though she’d expected no warm welcome from the people of Braetlyn, felt her fingers curling into fists despite her best efforts.
Their guide shoved open a hefty wooden portal, and they were there. Before them stretched a sizable room, its stone floor draped in sea-green carpet scuffed paper-thin by years of tromping feet. An enormous fireplace—empty, during these warmer months—occupied most of the far wall, with a marble bust of a warrior’s torso mounted above. Tapestries of seascapes and legendary heroics hung from the other walls, as did wooden plaques bearing weapons in modern steel and ancient bronze.
And standing before that fireplace, looking up from an open book in a bored stance quite clearly premeditated to show his guests who was in charge, their host himself: Jassion, Baron of Braetlyn. Not yet thirty years old, his narrow face bore the lines of a man twice his age. Save for a gleaming green ring, he was clad in unrelenting black. Hair the color of newly tilled soil was matched by equally dark eyes—eyes just a touch too wide, as if the man behind them could not tear them from some horror that others could not see.
“Your guests, m’lord,” the knight announced, waiting for only the slightest nod before he vanished from the chamber. The door shut behind him with surprising softness, as though afraid to startle anyone remaining within.
“So,” Jassion said, shutting the book with a much louder snap and tossing it carelessly into a nearby chair. “Salia Mavere, in my very own home. I’m honored.” He apparently couldn’t be bothered to even try to make it sound genuine.
“Thank you for receiving us, my lord,” she replied with a shallow curtsy. He acknowledged with a nod barely more perceptible than that he’d given his knight.
“Do you prefer Priestess, Lady Mavere? Or Guildmistress?”
“Just Salia will do, Baron.”
Jassion barked out a single incredulous ha! “There’s nothing just about any of you damn Guildmasters. Or anything you’ve done.”
Salia managed, with some small effort, to keep her smile plastered to her face, to show no reaction to the baron’s childish outburst. Her companion, however, rolled his eyes dramatically enough for the both of them.
“I’m glad,” she bulled on, determined to remain polite, “that you were able to see us without notice like this, my lord. I hope it’s not too much of an inconvenience.”
Jassion shook his head and took a seat, very deliberately not asking his guests to do the same. “I could hardly have been elsewhere, could I, Salia? Your soldiers have been squatting on every road out of here for three years.”
“You’re not a prisoner, my lord. They’re simply meant to ensure your safety, and to accompany you should you need to travel.”
Their eyes met in jousting glares, neither under any illusions about Jassion’s internal exile. “And do all Imphallion’s nobles warrant such protection?” he asked.
“Only those who seem liable to attract trouble.”
Salia’s driver shook his head and slumped into a nearby chair. In response to Jassion’s furious glower, he merely offered a friendly wave.
“Why don’t you take a seat?” Jassion offered between clenched teeth. Scarcely had Salia done so, placing the box she carried at her feet, than he continued. “Shall we cut the shit, Salia? We both know damn well that I’ve had nothing to say to the Guilds since you dethroned the regent and sent me on this wonderful sojourn back home. You want something from me, and since you know that I’d sooner sit on a hot poker and then mount a horse than spit on you if you were on fire, I’m honestly at a loss as to what it might be.”
“How colorful,” the Guildmistress muttered. Then, “First, my lord Jassion, I regret to inform you that I have bad news.”
“Oh, there’s a surprise.”
“I fear Vantares has welcomed several of your fellow noblemen into the underworld, Jassion.”
That brought him up short. “Who?” he asked in a startled whisper. “Among quite a few others, Duke Halmon—”
“The regent’s dead?”
Salia let that pass, even though both of them knew he’d not held that title for some time. “And Duke Edmund.”
Jassion sagged back in his chair, one hand plucking at the cushioned armrest. “I knew Edmund well,” he murmured. “We fought together during the Serpent’s War.”
“I know.” And then, her tone suggesting that she might actually have meant it, “I’m sorry.”
“Cephira?” he demanded. “I’ve heard rumors …”
“Some of which are true, I’m sure. They’ve taken several of our border towns, and if we’re not formally at war already, I imagine we will be by the time I get back to Mecepheum. But no, they’ve shown little interest in our territories beyond the borderlands so far, and anyway, this was no Cephiran assassin.”
“Then who?”
Salia glanced once at her companion, who shrugged casually, seemingly more interested in picking at something under his nails than involving himself in the conversation.
“There were several survivors among the guards,” she said hesitantly, “so most of what we know comes from them. The most helpful of them was a fellow by the name of …”
* * *
MARLO STOOD TALL, back stiff as a spear, and tried to ignore the chafing of the hauberk across his shoulders, the sting of smoke in his eyes and chest. Many of the others were amusing themselves trying to stare down the other soldiers, but Marlo was new to the ranks of the Cartographers’ Guild’s men-at-arms, and sufficiently inexperienced—puffed up might have been a better term—that he took himself far too seriously for such games. The fact that he’d been chosen to stand guard over a secret summit between select Guildmasters and nobles of the realm wasn’t doing his ego any disfavors, either.
Perhaps it was his disdain for the antics of his fellow soldiers, or maybe it was just blind luck, that caused him to look away—to watch aimlessly, so far as the clinging smoke and flickering shadows would permit—down the hall from which they’d all initially arrived. And thus it was Marlo who saw him first.
The young soldier was convinced that he was imagining phantoms in the dark, for how could anyone have followed them down here? Yet the figure refused to dissipate into the shadows; in fact, it was growing quite obviously solid, remarkably fast.
Marlo was reaching for his blade, drawing in a lungful of sooty air to shout warning or challenge, when the new arrival raised a hand. Marlo swore he saw a flash of bloody crimson from the vicinity of the man’s chest.
Behind Marlo, half a dozen soldiers screamed, hands flying to their heads as though to hold their skulls atop their necks. Bone shattered, spraying blood and brains from within useless helms, and six men collapsed without ever knowing what had killed them. One of the bodies rocked back on its heels and slid to the floor, spasming muscles holding its hands aloft beside a head that simply wasn’t there anymore.
Even as his brain gibbered and his limbs trembled, Marlo was moving, for he alone had seen the danger coming. Broadsword in hand, shouting something he could never later recall, he charged the invader. What part of his mind still functioned, and had not already been overwhelmed with horror, nearly shut down when he recognized the black-and-bone armor, realized who—what—he was facing. But even through a rising tide of terror, brave Marlo knew his duty.
His blade arced downward in a blow that should have cleaved flesh, or at least broken bone, even through that terrible, infamous armor. Should have, but did not, for the warlord parried with a violent backhand that sent the sword scraping harmlessly along the black vambrace.
Marlo felt himself lifted into the air by a hand he never even saw moving. From below that gaping skull came that same red glow, gleaming from an amulet partially concealed by the armor’s cuirass. And then Marlo was soaring, briefly, until the passageway’s nearest wall ended his flight. He heard his hauberk rattle, heard more than felt the cracking of ribs. He struggled to catch his wind as he slumped to the floor, to breathe around the blood welling up behind his tongue.
Crawling forward on his belly, hand reaching for his fallen sword, Marlo watched in horror as a score of men were torn apart. A vicious axe hung at the armored warrior’s side, but the fiend hadn’t bothered even to draw it. Fists landed like catapult shot, snapping bones. Flames roared from his open palm, and men crumbled to ash before they could scream. One of the guards slid inside the invader’s reach, delivered what should have been a crippling blow to the armor’s chest. Instead the dark warrior simply batted the weapon aside, lifted the soldier in a wrestler’s hold, and slammed him down upon one of his own armored shoulders. Marlo couldn’t tell from where he lay if it had been the spines on that armor, or the brutal impact, that killed the man.
More flames, more blood, and Marlo rose on shaking legs. Struggling through the agony in his chest, sword clapped in both hands to keep it from falling, he moved to strike …
The warlord spun, empty sockets gazing into Marlo’s terrified face. A black-gauntleted fist rose, and the world went black.
* * *
“MARLO WAS ONE OF ONLY THREE SURVIVORS,” Salia explained, concluding her recounting. “And the other two accounts pretty well match his. None of the soldiers actually saw what occurred within the meeting chamber itself, but between their stories and the state of the bodies, I think we can draw some firm conclusions. We—”
With an inchoate roar, Jassion was out of his chair and lunging across the room, fingers outstretched for Salia’s throat. All semblance of propriety had melted away like so much candle wax, and the veins in his reddened face bulged appallingly.
But Salia Mavere was both Guildmistress of blacksmiths and priestess of their god, her muscles shaped by a lifetime of labor at the forge. A thunderous uppercut snapped Jassion back as though he’d reached the end of a tether. His pupils visibly dilated, and his neck and chin mottled instantly with blood beneath the skin.
And then, though she didn’t particularly seem to require his aid, the fellow who was clearly far more than Salia’s driver stood between them. Before Jassion had finished staggering, as his legs quivered through the process of deciding whether they were willing to hold him, the other man raised a hand and pushed at the air, as though dismissing some unfunny jest.
Jassion hurtled upward, his feet leaving the carpet, to slam into the wall beside the bust adorning the fireplace. And there he hung, held aloft by unseen magics. His jaw—which must already have ached abominably—fell slack. He shook his head as though to clear it, succeeding only in dislodging bits of dust and mortar that had sifted like dandruff into his hair.
Hand still held aloft, the driver aimed an incredulous gaze at his employer. “Are we sure this is the man we want? I’ve known mad dogs with more sense.”
“Salia,” Jassion croaked from on high, hands and feet thrashing.
“Starving mad dogs,” the apparent sorcerer clarified.
“Salia …”
“Starving mad dogs in heat.”
“Enough,” the priestess informed him. She turned a pleasant smile upon the floating baron. “Yes, m’lord Jassion?”
The baron took a deep, calming breath. “I’m all right. I’m calm. Kindly ask your—friend—to put me down.”
“You heard my lord,” she said sweetly.
The sorcerer shrugged and dropped his arm to his side. Then, staring down at the moaning form that now lay sprawled on the carpet, “Oh. You probably meant lower him slowly, didn’t you?”
Salia Mavere forced the amused smile to remain plastered across her face, even as her stomach roiled. In a way, she was almost grateful for the baron’s outburst, for it provided distraction from her own traitorous emotions.
She didn’t fear much, the mistress of the Blacksmiths’ Guild. But she knew terror every time she thought of that black-armored bastard—not for what she knew he’d done, but for what he might have done.
And she feared, too, what might happen if the other Guildmasters ever came to share her suspicions. They could take away everything I’ve worked for …
Jassion rose shakily to his feet, brushing dust from his chest—and, not incidentally, drawing his guest’s attention back to what was, rather than what might be. Then, each word strained through clenched teeth, “My sincerest apologies, Salia. That was inexcusable of me. I fear that you’ve touched on a rather sensitive topic.”
You’ve no idea. Still, she could only raise an eyebrow at that, impressed at Jassion’s apparent penchant for understatement. She knew, as did anyone in power in Imphallion, that a young Jassion had been present at the Denathere massacre, when Corvis Rebaine, called the Terror of the East, had ended his campaign in a basement full of corpses. The young baron had watched the warlord disappear with Jassion’s older sister, Tyannon, and survived only by lying hidden amid the tangled bodies.
She knew, too, that when Rebaine had resurfaced during the Serpent’s War, Jassion had been present at his interrogation. And she knew, though only a few others did, that Rebaine had claimed that not only had he not slain his hostage, he had eventually married her. At her instigation. According to the guards who were present, it had not been a revelation Jassion took particularly well.
So when she said, “I understand,” she meant it. “I’ll forgive the outburst, Baron Jassion. This time.”
He nodded curtly. “But I did tell you!” he erupted, only barely holding himself in check. “From the day the Serpent died, I warned you that allowing Rebaine to depart in peace was a mistake! We should have hunted him down and killed him when we had the chance!”
“It was a mistake,” Salia agreed softly. “One I would very much like you to help us rectify.” She couldn’t help but smile at the stunned disbelief that fell like a veil over his face. “Would you like to reconsider working with us? Or shall I fetch you your hot poker and call for a horse?”
“You want me to hunt Corvis Rebaine for you?” He seemed to be having real trouble grasping it.
“I do. The Guilds do.”
“Why?”
She leaned forward. “Because he couldn’t have resurfaced at a more inopportune time. I don’t need to tell you that the Houses and the Guilds are barely speaking to one another, let alone cooperating. Cephira’s invaded our borders. We cannot afford an internal war on top of all this, Jassion. Our attentions must remain focused on Cephira, and on trying to keep the government running.
“We cannot spare any of our own military forces to pursue Rebaine, not if we wish to check this invasion. In fact, we’ll be taking most of your soldiers with us when we return to Mecepheum, to join with the massed armies of the other Houses. And I think I’ll neither surprise nor offend you when I say that the other Guildmasters aren’t willing to put you in the field. You frighten them, for some reason.”
“Imagine that,” he muttered. Then, “So I’m to hunt down Corvis Rebaine on my own? No men at all?”
“Those few soldiers we aren’t holding in reserve to deal with Cephira will be needed elsewhere. There’s no way we can keep the rumors of Rebaine’s return from spreading; might as well try to cage the wind. We’ll need troops to keep the peace.
“Besides, any large force accompanying you would be impossible to keep secret, and I doubt a tiny handful of soldiers would be of much use against your quarry.”
Jassion couldn’t help but smile, then flinched at the pain in his bruised face. “I’m flattered you think so highly of my abilities, Salia, but—”
“I said you’d be without soldiers, Jassion, not without help.” She reached down, lifted the box she’d brought with her. Only an observer far closer than the baron would have noted how her flesh shrank from the touch of the wood. Drawing a key from within her belt, she popped open the lid so Jassion might see.
* * *
IT WAS A DRAMATIC GESTURE for something so unimpressive. “A dagger?” Jassion scoffed, his disdain rising like bile in the back of his throat. “I’ll need a bit more than … than …” And then he heard it. His voice failed him as he shuddered at the whispers in the back of his mind.
“It was recovered,” Mavere told him, her own voice soft, “near where Audriss the Serpent fell. It’s been handled only with tools since then, never by hand. Take it.”
The Baron of Braetlyn feared little in this world, but his soul shrieked a warning, pleading with his reaching fingers not to close about that simple, innocuous hilt.
Jassion didn’t listen. And even as he lifted the weapon, felt it shift and twist and grow within his grasp, the whispers coalesced in the tiny corner of his mind where nightmares dwelt, where a young boy still felt the clammy touch of dead arms and legs pressing against him from all sides. And they spoke to him a name.
Talon.
He blinked, and that eternal instant was over. Jassion held in his fists not a dagger but a great two-handed flamberge, its scalloped blade nearly five feet in length. For Talon was one of the Kholben Shiar, the demon-forged blades who read any wielder and assumed a form best suited to his heart and soul.
“This should even the odds a bit,” he said with a smirk.
“You’ll also,” Mavere said, “be taking him.”
Jassion frowned as the other fellow once more offered a cheery wave. “Hello again.”
“Salia, I do not—”
“Have any choice in the matter,” she interrupted. “Look, my lord, you’ve already seen some of the magics he has at his disposal. Well, they’re now at yours. Unless you think you can find and fight someone like Corvis Rebaine without such powers.”
His scowl deepened further, but he nodded. Though it actually, physically pained him, he extended a hand to the young sorcerer. “I’m sure you’ll bring something useful to the journey.”
The other looked at the hand, made no move to take it. “One of us has to,” he said with a faint sneer.
Jassion ground his teeth. “And what am I to call you, my new companion?”
“Oh, I’m certain you’ll be inspired to come up with a great many things to call me.
“But for now, Kaleb will do.”