Shadowcloaks Read online

  He moves like a lion, dragging the magii about by their own invisible tethers, trying to follow me. His singular focus buys me time and makes it easier for his aggressors to harass him.

  Santé batters him with a spiked hammer, is thrown aside, and is replaced by a tall, black-haired woman in battered, white armor. Its tired paint flecks away like snow when Ragus hits her in the chest, and as she falls sideways, I see that she’s missing her left hand and has tied a short-sword to the stump where it should be.

  Lucinda backs into my line of sight. “Run,” she says, covering my retreat.

  The last thing I see is blue fire spreading amid the skirmish. Unchecked, it will take the entire manor. I smile, because it means one Dreadlord is dead. Probably Jimmy.

  TWENTY

  Grippy looks at me in consternation even as he holds the back of his leg where blood is trickling between his fingers. “What do you mean, heal her?” he says, looking first at Carmen and then back up the tunnel to Selwin’s Manor. “We’re bein’ followed. We ha’ to keep ‘on.”

  I can hear the footsteps as well as he can. They are slow and unconcerned, magnified for effect. They aren’t as close as they sound, but that’s the way Maggot-Face Ragus wants it. Santé’s men weren’t enough to hold him off or kill him.

  Rose, stripped down to an undershirt and ripped trousers, is finally awake again. She has stopped beating Cobalt over the head with bare, ashen fists, though he still carries her over his shoulder like a bushel of carrots.

  Carmen makes a pitiful sound from where I’ve propped her up against the tunnel wall. There are tears in her eyes. “Teamus,” she says, weeping. “You have to keep moving.”

  Her hands are shaking on a piece of wadded-up skirt she has pressed to her waist, torn skirt that she has used to cover her wound. “Let me see Carmen. Please.”

  “I’m slowing you down,” Carmen says through gritted teeth. “You have to leave me.”

  I shake my head at Carmen. “I’m not leaving you.”

  When she moves the blood-stained cloth away, I want to vomit. This is no stray dart plucked away and abandoned. It isn’t the well-ordered gash of a sword thrust. She’s been hiding a whole crossbow bolt from us to keep us moving.

  “Lucinda!” I scream, my voice hoarse.

  I have no right to ask, but I do. I know what she can do. I know what it will cost her.

  “Lucinda!”

  She is at my side in an instant. I hold Carmen’s hands aside and stare into Carmen’s eyes, until they squeeze tight from the pain of getting the bolt out. It has an oddly jagged tip, one that would cut wickedly on the way in, but seems too small.

  “Why didn’t you tell me?” I ask, though I already know the answer. We had to keep moving.

  Carmen doesn’t say anything, but I can feel her worry as she opens her clenched eyes, as her body shakes in pain. Then I see her face jump to wonder as Lucinda absorbs part of the wound in a flash of light.

  Lucinda gasps and I steady her. “Thank you, Lucinda. Thank you.”

  We surge up, stumbling along, but we only make it fifty yards before Carmen collapses in a cry of anguish.

  Lucinda looks back and I see her faith shaken, the beginnings of fear in her normally implacable face. “Carmen?”

  Lucinda puts her hand to the wound and the glow of light comes again, this time like a lantern rather than a lightning strike. I don’t understand this magic, and it frightens me. I don’t believe in it, so I don’t have any right to expect it to work, but I want it to.

  We barely make it another twenty yards before Carmen sags against me for the third time, pain ripping from her throat so loud that Cobalt, who is so far down the passageway we can barely see his torch, hears her and turns back.

  Not this. Not this. Not this.

  “Lucinda?” My voice barely breaks a whisper. I’m using her up.

  Lucinda reaches for the wound. There is no flash, no glow. She tries again. “Teacup, I . . .” She sets her jaw, clenches one fist, and reaches a third time. There is blood seeping from the mirrored spot on Lucinda’s stolen ‘Shade-mail.

  “Lucinda.” Cobalt’s voice is full of command. For a moment he sounds like Magnus. “Stop.”

  “She’s dying,” Lucinda says. “I have to heal her.”

  She reaches out again as I cradle Carmen’s head in my lap. Nothing happens. Carmen’s eyes close. Her breath stops for a moment, and comes again, more ragged. Small people can’t afford to lose blood, and Carmen’s lost a lot.

  My world narrows in. The walls echo from the fighting back up the tunnel and the distant, relentless footsteps. I stare into Carmen’s closed eyes and watch my tears make river-trails on her beautiful face. We were so close.

  “Help me carry her, Lucinda,” I say, trying to lift Carmen.

  Cobalt stops me. He puts a hand over Lucinda’s and pulls it back. “Lucy-legs,” he says softly. “Sometimes belief isn’t enough.”

  “Don’t . . . You shouldn’t say . . .” Lucinda’s hand drops.

  Cobalt holds her shoulder, looks her dead in the eyes. “What was it?”

  She stares at him dumbly.

  “Before you healed it.”

  “Bolt. Crossbow.” She says this through teeth clamped on pain.

  “The bolt tip, how did it look? Too small? Jagged?” He describes the unusual tip as if he’s seen it a hundred times.

  Lucinda and I nod.

  “And now you’re too injured to help.”

  Lucinda nods again, this time covering her face in her hands. She begins to cry, a wretched sob I’ve never heard her make.

  “Idiots,” Cobalt mutters, looking around. “Goat-brains and grudlefards. I should’ve known that bastard would be too besotted to teach you anything useful. Mitre, my ass.”

  Cobalt fixes Grippy with a cobalt-blue eye. “Jiggy Greenface,” he says. “Go around that last bend with a torch, almost to the junction. If anything jiggles in the dark, yell and throw something pointy. Notice I said yell first. I’ll need time to get my sword out.”

  This is not a very good introduction. Grippy likes Cobalt’s unconventional naming less than most. Considerably less, it seems, from the looks of it.

  “Please, Grippy,” I say.

  Grippy scowls, his hunched neck swiveling to Carmen and Lucinda before slouching away. “Rescue plan sucks eggs, o’man.”

  I don’t disagree.

  Cobalt looks at me. “Is that a shadowglove?”

  “Yes.”

  “A real shadowglove?”

  “Yes.”

  “Give me one, and say a prayer.”

  I leave my white hand covered, unstrapping the other as fast as I can.

  Cobalt obviously has a plan. Immediately he starts puncturing it, creating tiny, lengthwise slits along the fingers, palm and backhand, cutting free the straps. Every second or so he tries it on, then makes a few more slits until it’s more a netting than fabric. Finally it fits his meaty hand like a black spiderweb.

  “What’s wrong with her?” Rose asks quietly, approaching from behind. She makes no move to help, but watches her sister impassively.

  Lucinda ignores them both and stares quietly into the darkness, clutching the wound she’s taken from Carmen, the wound that won’t heal.

  Cobalt wipes a knife clean and then holds it into the flame of the half-burned torch he’s dropped on the tunnel floor. “She’s bleeding out.”

  “But there’s no wound.”

  “Some weapons are designed specifically for us.”

  “For who?”

  His eyes dart to Lucinda. “For idiots who put too much faith in faith. Lay her flat.”

  I don’t understand what he’s saying. He must see it in my eyes.

  “Lay Carmen flat. Not Lucinda.”

  I do so.

  Cobalt stretches her out on the stone tunnel floor in an uncharacteristically gentle manner. His knife reopens the wound, right along the red, puffy scar Lucinda has made. When newly pooled blood and bits of ineffec
tual clot rush out, Lucinda turns to watch.

  Down the hall there is a brief shout, not Grippy’s, and then a gurgle.

  “How much longer, o’man Fake-Shade?”

  “How many darts do you have left?” Cobalt shouts back.

  “Four.”

  “Ask me again in three darts.”

  I look back to Cobalt, my glove stretched over meaty fist, torn a bit at the widest part. “Why the glove?”

  “Grips the unforgiving surfaces, right?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, there’s nothing more unforgiving than a soul-shatter tip. It’s made of glass, stone, and iron. It spreads into the wound as the bolt tip shatters.”

  With one finger, he probes the shaft wound. When he removes his finger, there are tiny shards sticking to it. He wipes these carefully from the glove finger. Again and again he reaches into Carmen’s side with alternating fingers, delicately dragging out shard after tiny shard. Most are no bigger than the tip of a dessert fork.

  He talks to Lucinda while he works, explaining to her what went wrong, soothing her, soothing everyone here. It feels like all the suffering, betrayal, and pain in his life has informed this one moment, this one moment where it’s obvious he understands us, each of us. His strength and compassion spreads among us, and even Rose and the remaining thug crowd in a little closer, basking in its earthy warmth. In his presence, Ragus’s magically-amplified footsteps seem muffled and distant.

  “A soul-shatter tip is a nasty thing. You get two Paladins for the price of one,” he says while he works. “The projectile breaks. The Paladin has his friend pull the shaft out and then heal him. They get up to fight, but the injured one falls down again. The shards continue to shred him from the inside, but he thinks he just didn’t believe enough. He begins to doubt himself, his cause, and his friend.” He pulls out another larger shard and works quietly for a moment.

  “Doubt destroys the soul,” Lucinda breathes.

  Cobalt snorts. “Yes and no. Believe me, Lucy-legs, doubt isn’t always bad.”

  After another few minutes he takes the glove off and hands it back to me. I take it numbly and stuff it into my belt, not knowing what else to do with it.

  Cobalt looks at Lucinda. “Can you give it one more go?”

  Lucinda kneels, wincing. “I think so.”

  There is a small flash and Lucinda passes out. Cobalt catches her head, one-handed as she slumps, and lowers it to the floor. “Easy, Lucy.”

  “My sister.” Rose’s voice is filled with awe. “She’s breathing again.”

  “Of course she’s breathing,” Cobalt says.

  Rose turns on Cobalt and the awe in her voice disappears. “Can you do that, Shoulders?” She’s already picked up on his naming conventions.

  Cobalt doesn’t answer her.

  “Can you?” Rose insists.

  “My magic doesn’t work that way, Lips.”

  “How does it work?”

  He gives her a flat look. “Get moving, Lips. Unless you want your pale boyfriend catching us.”

  I know what that means. It means Cobalt doesn’t have a hadia, unless maybe it’s understanding pain, and that’s not much of a gift, really.

  Cobalt scoops up Lucinda, whose eyes flutter open, and he whistles for Grippy. “Greenface. Let’s go.”

  Grippy backs around the corner, but he doesn’t turn to face us. His fly-away hair is a torch of its own, his snarling face flickering in the light of blue flame. His thug runs to join him.

  I can feel that drumbeat again, the one Cobalt momentarily dampened. It smells of death and stone-cold hands.

  Step.

  Step.

  Step.

  I can feel him coming.

  “Put me down, Cobalt,” Lucinda says weakly.

  Cobalt doesn’t argue.

  Step.

  Step.

  Step.

  “You’ve made a colossal mistake, Mr. Steeps.” The Dreadlord’s voice reaches us before we can see him.

  Step.

  Step.

  Step.

  Ragus appears around the corner, dark streaks of blood and fluid leaking from a shattered eye. He is still, most certainly, more than we can handle. So much for my plan to pawn him off on the Tax Watch.

  “Let the others go and I’ll stop killing your pawns,” I say, using up the last of my bravado.

  “You think they matter?” He growls and lurches toward me, shrugging off Grippy and his thug effortlessly. “Their only purpose now is to make you suffer, and your suffering is the only thing that matters.”

  Lucinda and Cobalt jump between us, but he catches one of her blades and breaks it with his massive hand. He blocks Cobalt’s overhand swing with a stoney arm and kicks him into the tunnel wall. Cobalt settles into the stone like a cracked egg in flour. Lucinda tries to strike with her other sword, but she is weak now, and unbalanced. Ragus backhands her disdainfully. She flies past Grippy and lands on the tunnel floor next to the guttering torch.

  Ragus looks at Rose as if taunting her, but Rose does nothing, her eyes downcast. She doesn’t run. She doesn’t try to help. Rather, she sits down on the stone, helpless and hopeless. Lies down on the tunnel floor, eyes and face like stone, still as death.

  I seize the moment, hoping this simple distraction will buy me something. I flow around him, leap from his calf to his shoulder, pounding him, raking him with my weapons as we dance. Tom’s stone dagger shatters against his cheek. Ragus reaches, spins, kicks, and bites, trying to shake me off, but he cannot catch me, not yet. But I am tired. My own steel draws only sparks and rock chips, while he seems untouched by sweat and human effort.

  I leap away, rolling lightly to stand between him and Carmen. This is where we die.

  Ragus stalks forward, a shadow-lion in my own den, my own city.

  Above me I feel Ector’s heartbeat. Not in the way of an acquisitioner, who knows every alley and sewer like the back of his hand. This is something different. I feel it like an elixir, creeping into my bones, like I’ve spent a lifetime of sitting on the city’s oaken throne. I feel the roads and alleys like I’ve never felt them before. I feel the people and their curs, the barons and their trees, the rats, the roaches, and the guttersnipes. The reavers and the dock-men.

  Like a king, I feel the silent oaken throne just a short walk down the corridor. I feel it’s power and see the city opening above me again. I feel the rush of water overflowing gutters, overwhelming sewers, and flooding filthy streets.

  The river is above me. The storm-sewers are bursting, unable to push all the extra water into the river fast enough. I feel cracks in the rings of Ector, the corridors that Tom forged beneath the city, beneath the sewers.

  Ragus’s eyes narrow.

  I feel the burn of a headache in the back of my head.

  Ragus raises his blade. I feel his one good eye on my neck as our torch gutters, plunging us into blackness.

  “Teacup,” Carmen says, softly. “Thank you for coming for me.” Carmen has always voiced her thoughts and I have too rarely done so, but I have learned. I will not let it end in silence.

  “I’m from Eastmarch.” I say, almost grinning. “I keep my promises. But I didn’t just come for promises. I came because I love you.”

  I can feel her smile in the darkness. I can also see Ragus, a shadow on shadows as his black sword sweeps sideways toward my neck.

  “Teacup.” This is Rose’s voice. “Teacup, save your friends.”

  She doesn’t say the other words. She doesn’t have to. I hear them like my beating heart. I serve you now, Dreadlord.

  She collapses as I pull her from her body. I become stronger, as strong as a cold, stone pillar on a winter’s night. But this will not work, I realize. Every moment I fight like this, the closer to a Familiar she becomes, her body turning to wind as surely as if I’d turned to stone and let the soul-knife finish its job. This magic isn’t the healing sort.

  If I don’t use Rose, Ragus will destroy us. Even as a Dread
lord, I wouldn’t be a match for him.

  He presses on me like the raging sewers and rising river, but his blade lodges deep into the amber protection of house magic. I have claimed the oaken throne, have eaten and slept here, and called these hallways home.

  “It won’t matter, Little Jester,” Ragus growls as he jerks the sword free. “House magic won’t protect you forever.” He mutters strange words, and I feel a rush of wind in the darkness as something heavy falls from the ceiling, knocking me sideways and pinning my foot.

  Water drips on my head, and I hear the whoosh of his mighty blade sinking deeper into my house magic. I can almost feel the cold steel pulling against my neck as he yanks it free and winds up again.

  The water, Rose whispers in my head.

  The water, I agree.

  Stone and sewer above crumble at our touch, bringing down the rest of the ceiling, the flood, and half the sewer. The water hits us like a wall, swirling about, banging us together and ripping us apart, above and below. I strike at Ragus’s eyes as he comes closer, and then the tunnel folds away, even the stones tumbling in the torrent, my spare dagger is ripped away as we’re swept down the tunnel. I slam into a wall and see stars, trying uselessly to cradle my head. The wall above me—or perhaps the ceiling—folds outward, and then we’re pushed into the river by half the water in Ector’s sewers, arms and legs akimbo.

  But It isn’t just that. It’s Rose. I see her lifeless body turning grey as it rushes past, even as her soul is somewhere out there, pulling us to safety. Because this is my city, and Rose’s home, Ragus’s own familiar can’t stop her.

  The water takes us all.

  TWENTY-ONE