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  SHADOWCLOAKS

  The Paladin’s Thief, Book 4

  Benjamin K Hewett

  Copyright © 2019 by Benjamin K. Hewett

  All Rights Reserved.

  ISBN-13: 978-1-7938-1123-3

  To Viddy, Sam, and everyone else who told me they were tired of waiting.

  PROLOGUE

  They’re calling me names now.

  Teamus Steeps, Little Jester. Teamus Steeps, Lord of Ector. Or just, The Nightshade Slayer.

  They’ve plastered these, and sketches to match, onto wood and stone across the city, because they think I set the ocean to boil and shatter-cracked a Dreadlord’s wrist with my bare hand. They think I called down fire and brimstone on The Black Cat Tavern and Inn. People think a lot of stupid things.

  I’m not ashamed. I did what I had to do. Everyone knows how a little lie can get people moving.

  For the histories, though, lies are bad business. Take Fortrus Abbey. Pan didn’t shine his holy light on the city and save it from Nightshades. We did that. Me, Lucinda, and Magnus. We had help, but the jury’s still out on whether Pan was there. When you watch your thirteen-year-old daughter sobbing on the body of her best friend, you’ve got to wonder. You’ve got to wonder why he’d leave the fate of his mightiest abbey in the hands of an aquisitioner, an ex-barmaid, and a pair of broad-shouldered, black-sheep Paladin cadets.

  Or maybe you don’t. Maybe you just forget Fortrus and stick with Nightshade Slayer.

  Not the ‘Shades, though. They won’t forget Fortrus, and they won’t forget anything leading up to it. They’ll remind you with a ransom note and a lock of curly, red hair, forcibly-taken. For extra spite they’ll send the letter with some road-weary tax-collector, so you have to pay one ransom before getting the next.

  But even ‘Shades make mistakes. Even a ’Shade might kick a hellcat on his last of nine. And when that happens, even Dreadlords should run for cover.

  ONE

  “They’re getting closer, Lucinda.”

  She twists sideways, still leading the horse forward, and gives me her most patronizing stare. The barmaids of The Black Cat Tavern and Inn have a way of getting under your skin when they need too, and Lucinda more than most.

  “I’m not falling for that one again, Teacup.”

  She uses my nickname, but without the usual warmth. She’s exhausted. Her face is wind-beaten, pale against her ragged golden hair, pale from weeks of marching beneath thick clouds and through shadows cast from the peaks of this snowy pass. Her lips are cracked and blood-scabbed from the cold strong enough to suck the moisture right out of you and splits trees in the forest.

  No wonder the wolves are down in the passes.

  Deepwinter’s fury lies around us in piles of matchwood, fir needles, and columns of shattered ice. Late as it is in the season, we still hear the trees dying, great ripping cracks from high in the mountains. At night they wake me, shaking the tent fabric and making the horse whinny.

  Not that I mind being woken. The howling wind, flapping tent, and frozen ground are better companions than the dreams I’ve been having.

  I listen to the calling wolves as I trudge through the ice. There’s at least a pair of them. The rustle of snowflake on cloak, the crunch of our boots through crusted ice, and the sometimes-howling wind conspire to hide them from us, but they are there. Even without the Nightshade ring I can hear tonal differences in their voices.

  “I’m serious this time, Lucinda.”

  “We went over this, Teacup. You can’t scare me away.” She snorts and turns. “They’re getting closer!” she says, imitating my squeaky tenor voice better than a hoarse, snow-burned alto has any right to.

  My kids, Timnus and Valerie, would grin and laugh if they were here. Or rather, Timmy would grin and Valerie would laugh. The twins are like two halves of a whole, and they love Lucinda’s jokes. That thought only makes it more annoying, knowing we’re far from them and getting farther.

  I don’t regret trying to scare her off though, and I will give her the slip, eventually. That’s not really the problem. I’m good at that sort of thing. Getting to Ector before she does is the real problem. Ector’s a trap, and Lucinda’s mouthy style will trigger it faster than telling a hungry priest he’s fat.

  What else can the city of Ector be? The ‘Shades gave my wife a haircut and sent me the evidence.

  It’s going to be a bloodbath. My blood, mostly, I’d guess. I’m not much of a killer. I’m better at hiding than meeting things head on. But I’ve got to try. I promised I’d come back for her.

  Carmen.

  I miss her. I miss playing darts with her at The Black Cat when the other patrons are drooling on the tables, sleeping in their cups. I miss her small, crafty hand as it pulls me from the board to tell me about her latest commission. I miss how the rise and fall of her chest mirrors mine. I miss the way her hair heats up The Black Cat’s broken clientele, makes the drunks and reprobates stand a little taller.

  The ‘Shades will kill her. They aren’t patient, and if hope doesn’t bring me quickly enough, they’ll tempt me with revenge.

  Suddenly, my blood feels as cold and frozen as the unforgiving forest. I grip the lock of hope in my pocket. If hope is heat, then it’s the only candle flame left in existence. I have to press on.

  Being afraid is one thing, but knowing I’m taking Lucinda into danger makes it worse. She has something to live for. Nightshades might not notice me slipping into town, but Lucinda turns heads everywhere she goes, even after losing half her golden locks in a firefight with a Dreadlord.

  “Lucinda,” I begin for the fortieth time, “you’re going to draw—”

  “We stick together. You’d be dead right now without me.” She makes a visible effort to calm herself. “And you’re not the only one who cares about Carmen.”

  There’s no point in arguing, Pan knows. There’s no point in saying how many times I’ve saved her life these last few months, no point reminding her again how Nightshades flock to Paladins like moths to a flame. She doesn’t care. She doesn’t care she almost froze to death in the ice storm three days back. She doesn’t care how dangerous this blizzard in front of us is likely to be. She just does what she thinks is right.

  Hmm.

  That shouldn’t be a problem, I guess, but I don’t want to see another friend die.

  Last night, the snowy half of the mountainside came right down onto our trail. Halifax, Lucinda’s horse, loves it. It means that Lucinda walks beside him, stroking his mane and whispering nice things to him, avoiding the poop and steam, which is what I get to deal with.

  At least the both of them are breaking a path for me. Halifax clears it and Lucinda tramps it down while I bring up the rear.

  I hate walking behind, but with my size I’m useless plowing snow. That’s the sort of thing Magnus would be handy for. But he’s waist deep in the Fortrus bureaucracy now, and that’s something he’s not suited for. Probably doesn’t have a clue yet that Lucinda and I have left Solange. Or rather, he does, and is just realizing we’re too far gone to help.

  I should have left a note. There are plenty of things he needs to know.

  Lucinda did leave a note. She says she tacked it to the hermitage door outside of Stone-and-Sky, where she left Raymond. “It was a really nice note,” she insists. “I told them why I had to padlock Raymond inside.”

  “And why was that?” I asked.

  “To protect the sacred funds. Obviously.”

  Hah. Raymond, locked up with the sacred funds. Can’t think of a better place for the young clerk. He’s got plenty of food. He’ll be fine.

  But the Mitres won’t care about Lucinda’s pretty words. They won’t be impressed with her poor spelling or newly grasped penmanship. They certainly won�
�t be happy to have their star cadet gallivanting off on some non-sanctioned walkabout.

  Lucinda could read those tea leaves as well as anyone. She’s never been one to wait for permission while others dicker about what she can and can’t do. That’s certainly what the Mitres would have done, had she stuck around to ask. So it only took her three hours to catch me, even though she didn’t know I’d gone until morning.

  There’s also a story about me, my horse, and the essentials of horsemanship that I’d rather not talk about. My consolation is that Lucinda doesn’t know the first thing about field gear, though she did have the foresight to bring some. Between the two of us we usually figure things out.

  As I walk, I begin mentally drafting my own letter to the Mitres, explaining the borrowed gear, excusing her rash behavior, explaining how I forced her to come with me. Lies, of course, but I can’t be punished, even if I do survive. I’ve never made any vows to the Abbey of Fortrus and don’t intend to.

  That thought reminds of obligations I do have, though. Valery and Timnus think I’m on a short trip to one of Fortrus Abbey’s many holdings, not headed back into Nightshade territory. I start drafting an explanation in my head to Valery and Timnus, because this is surely the bigger betrayal. They’ll forgive me. They know they’re safe in Fortrus, while Carmen is unsafe in Ector.

  “Dear Val. . .”

  Hopefully I’ll get to send this letter. Or maybe they’ll get it anyways, after next year’s tax collectors find my frozen corpse and pry the letter from my cold, lifeless grip.

  The wind and chill are putting me in a foul mood. Even after we break through the fresh-fallen avalanche, the snow is often waist deep. Well, for me, at least. It only comes up to Lucinda’s thigh, but she doesn’t complain. She’s tireless. She strokes Hali’s mane, and he nickers back encouragingly.

  If I tried to stroke his mane, the best I’d get is a baleful look, with sharp teeth coming in close second. I’m not tall enough, anyway.

  My feet blister and bleed as I trudge along. One more reason to hate winter.

  It’s early afternoon when the sky clears. The sun beams relentlessly into the pass, reflecting off the snow and putting a heavenly sheen on everything. I shade my eyes as they adjust, and in a few minutes I can see across the mountains and into the valley where we’re headed. Two more days. Two more days and we’ll be through.

  It isn’t just the wolves we have to worry about, though. Behind us, down one valley and back up the slope, I can see a dark shape trailing us, too big to be a wolf, and too slow. It’s been gaining ground for the last three days, appearing and disappearing with the rise and fall of the landscape.

  Lucinda thinks it’s one of the Brothers of Light, but I doubt it. They spend too much time arguing about what’s best to actually do anything. “Deliberation” they call it.

  Lucinda notices me checking the slope behind us. “Magnus?” she asks hopefully.

  “Too short, Lucinda. It’s not Magnus. You know it’s not Magnus.”

  Lucinda sighs and turns back to Halifax.

  “It’s probably that same bastard who told us the passes were open.” I say this, but I’m not convinced. The tax man should have had the sense not to tempt fate twice. More likely it’s some bumjade sent by the ‘Shades, hoping to catch us unawares.

  Lucinda ignores my foul temper. “Should we wait for him? We’d be better traveling as three. Hali wouldn’t have to break ground all the time by himself.”

  Halifax snorts in protest. He likes showing off for Lucinda.

  For once Halifax and I agree, but I have my own reasons. Every day we wait could be the day the ‘Shades decide that Carmen’s better bait dead. And besides. . . “If I were a lone Nightshade hell-bent on revenge,” I say to Lucinda, “this would be an ideal setup.”

  I swallow several times to try and get enough moisture into my throat to talk. My voice is as coarse as Lucinda’s. “Get us away from Fortrus Abbey and let the elements take their toll. Catch us one night before we break into open country.”

  This thought is more chilling than I’d care to admit. While the assassins’ guild doesn’t spend a lot of time on the open road, Lucinda’s new friends at Fortrus Abbey are bad for Nightshade business. Really bad. Eighty-dead-Nightshades-and-a-Dreadlord bad. Whatever network they had in the sprawling metropolis of Fortrus is now just a ghost of itself, and Lucinda and I might have, sort of, saved everyone. So luring us away from the Abbey isn’t a long-shot. It’s their only shot, and after the failed coup on Fortrus Abbey even the greatest Nightshades might be tempted from their gilded cushions.

  Lucinda scowls. She sees it, too. The ‘Shades probably have no intent of letting us anywhere near Ector.

  Instead she points. “Then I’d like to see the bastard weather this.”

  My eyes go up the mountain to where she’s pointing. There, the clouds are solidifying again in an angry, grey pile against the paladin-white mountain side. Neither of us is an expert yet at reading weather, especially not up here, but we’ve had some extraordinary practice in the last two weeks and this mess doesn’t look good.

  “Lucinda, we have to weather that.”

  It’s been two weeks since the tax collector brought me Red’s letter, Carmen’s stolen hair, and fickle Spring’s promise of an open pass. It’s been one week since Spring reneged its promise. I’d have come through the pass anyway, but to have hope of quick passage dangled and then jerked away stings.

  I grind my teeth in frustration.

  Or because it’s cold. I can’t tell anymore.

  We pick a campsite within a stand of pines where the snow banks have formed around three sides, banks high enough to block the wind and leave a small patch of terrain empty. There’s a river nearby, running the noontime melt off, with ice halfway across.

  We’ve learned from experience. Neither of us has spent any time on the open road, but making mistakes is the fastest (if not deadliest) way to learn, and with two of us the mistakes come twice as often. No windbreak means the flapping tent and howling wind keep you up all night. Camping in a slight depression means that snowmelt runs through your flapping, howling tent. Lighting a fire underneath a snow-laden pine means that heated snow comes slushing into the pitiful flame you’ve been nursing for the last thirty minutes with icy fingers.

  In fact, the only thing that’s kept us alive is Lucinda’s unrelenting internal fire, and not just the sort that gets work done. She has saved my life. According to Fortrus Abbey regulations, a Sister should have her own tent, but she doesn’t. She threw the canvas beast over the mountain three days back in frustration. I know now that it takes precious minutes to pound stakes into the rocky, frozen ground, and we end up in the same tent every night anyway, huddled for warmth.

  Even in training, Lucinda’s always given more weight to practicality than propriety. It’s both a strength and a shortcoming in a place like Fortrus, where good men stand on ceremony to the exclusion of common sense. That’s why Lucinda probably won’t be telling anyone about this one-tent irregularity.

  To be even more honest, even Cobalt would be hard-pressed to think of anything untoward of tent-sharing in this biting wind and weather.

  When I get the last tent stake pounded into the frosty earth, and when the first gentle tendril of smoke goes spinning up from Lucinda’s kindling, I remember the wolves. The howls might be closer, but it’s difficult to tell with the howls echoing about between peaks and canyons.

  I pile up snow around the base of the tent, building it up until the windy side has a waist-deep snow bank. I continue around the edges, improving on the windbreak until Lucinda signals me.

  “Teacup.”

  “Yes?”

  “Wood?”

  I nod, and head for the nearest tree. The less we talk, the less our lips split. I rummage about in a shallow drift and get lucky. Broken trees and fallen trunks and branches here have given seed to the snow bank, but several are new, dry deadfall, blown down by the furious storm, and not yet buri
ed too deep. My gloves protect my fingers from the icy bark. I pull the long branch out and bang the snow off before dragging it to the fire.

  Lucinda’s fire swells. She adds several pieces from the branch I’ve brought. They’re more brittle than the wood she gathered and better suited to the task.

  I drag another deadfall toward our growing woodpile, and then another. I’m glad Lucinda’s got it stoked and burning hot now. Already it’s drying out the supply I’m stacking, and if the wind holds off it promises to be a comfortable evening. Maybe she’ll even sing. She doesn’t have a great voice. It’s low and croaky in this weather, but that makes it all the more fun.

  Except our lips are chapped, so humming might be a better option. I watch her feeding the fire and take a seat next to her.

  Lucinda’s face is thinner than I’ve ever seen it. The weeks of combat training followed by two weeks of hurried travel seem to be grinding her down. She doesn’t seem unhappy though, just hungry and tired. Her bruises from our tangle with the Nightshades in Fortrus and her assault on Hawkwood are mostly gone, though the scabs and scars linger, joined by cold-chapped skin and cracked lips, blood leaking from them every time we try to talk. Unlike the coastal city of Fortrus, the winter air here never warms, never gives a warm and humid respite from the icy winds. The tax man said the passes were open, but then, tax men are known to have a twisted sense of humor.

  “The weather is turning,” Lucinda says, reading my thoughts and my forlorn stare into the mountain pass ahead of us.

  “And not for the better.” I dig through my pack and hand Lucinda a half-stick of dried sausage and a nearly frozen cheese.

  “Where’d you get these, Teacup?”

  I shrug. “Borrowed. Not from orphans or the destitute.”

  She rolls her eyes, but puts it on the stone by the fire where it might soften a bit.

  “It came from a well-stocked larder, in any case. I could do a starving farmhouse, mind you,” I emphasize. “You know, in a ‘me or them’ sort of situation.”