Shadow's Son Part 20

"I'm sorry. I wasn't trying to stare."

He ran a hand down his cheek, under his bushy chin, and up the other side. "No offense taken. It's been a long time since this ugly mug felt the eyes of a pretty lady."

Josey looked around for something to change the subject, and her gaze wandered to the fireplace. "Why do you have a stick hanging on your wall?"

Kas turned to look at the weapon mounted over the hearth. Dust covered its shaft and metal head. "Ah. That, darling, is an old friend of mine."

"A friend?"

"Aye. I was first spear of the emperor's Fourth Legion. That old pike and I tramped across more earth than I care to remember. She got me through the Border Wars and back from the Long March."

"My father-" Josey's voice caught in her throat for a moment. She pressed onward. "He told me about the crusade into the Northern Wastes. He said hardly anyone came back."

Kas carved another slice of ham for himself. "That's so. Only one company in ten returned to Nimea. That was my last campaign. After watching so many friends die, I just wanted a little plot of land for myself and as much peace as any man deserves. Even an old warhorse like me."

Josey lifted the cup to her lips. "So tell me about Caim."

"I was under the impression you knew him better than I, young miss."

"I-?" She understood the connotation and managed to blush. "No, sir. Caim and I are only companions by happenstance. We're just friends."

"Well, what would you like to know?"

She leaned her elbows on the table. "Was he always ... the way he is now?"

"You mean the dark clothes and hard eyes?"

"Exactly!"

"No, not always. He was a pleasant lad when he was smaller, before his father was killed right in front of him and his mother taken away to parts unknown."

His words sobered Josey faster than a shot of his bitter cha and reminded her that she wasn't the only one who had lost her parents. She couldn't imagine what it had been like for a small boy, alone, suddenly thrust into the world.

"It must have been hard for him."

Kas nodded over his plate. "Aye. It broke his little heart, and perhaps his mind, too. He didn't hardly speak at all after I took him out of the city and brought him down here. I thought I could raise him up proper, take care of him, but there was always something different about Caim after the attack."

"Different how?"

"Well, it wasn't so much what he said, or didn't, as how he acted. He spent most of his time alone. He had no interest in playing children's games anymore. In fact, he wanted nothing to do with me at all unless it had to do with weapon play. I tried to put him off, but I could see early on that he wouldn't be long for this little cottage. So I figured I'd best make sure he knew how to take care of himself."

"So you're the one who taught him how to fight."

Kas shook his head. "I can't take much credit for that. Oh, I taught him how to handle a blade without sticking himself, but not much more than the basics. You see, soldiering is all I know, but Caim wasn't satisfied with the simple drills I could teach him. He always pushed himself harder. No, he learned more in those woods, stalking the forest creatures and whatnot, than from me. I'll never forget the day he came home with a fine young buck slung over his shoulder. The thing weighed d.a.m.ned near as much as he did. He didn't have no bow or arrows neither. Not even a spear."

"How did he kill it, then?"

Kas chewed on a piece of ham for a moment. "When I asked him that, he took out the hunting knife I'd given him and laid it on the table just as bold as bra.s.s. I nearly cuffed him for lying, but I could see it in his eyes."

"He wasn't lying."

"Nope. Near as I can tell, he ain't never lied to me."

Josey let that tumble around in her head as she thought about how to phrase her next question. She couldn't let go of the things she had seen in the cellar of her father's house. Caim had done something, or become something. She wasn't sure which, but it wasn't natural.

"Kas, did Caim ever do anything ... strange?"

The big man put another hunk of piglet in his mouth and nodded. "All the time. You've seen it. He's a strange bird, but loyal to the bone. Was always like that. He'd wrangle like a snake to get out of a ch.o.r.e he didn't like, but if he gave you his word, he was as true as steel."

"No, I mean did you ever see him do anything odd? Something you couldn't explain."

Kas met her gaze, his sea blue eyes twinkling in the candlelight. "You mean his powers."

Josey understood what he meant by the way he said it. She nodded.

Kas sat back in his chair and reached for his cup. After a long drink, he sighed. "Aye, I've seen it. It started not long after his father was killed. Caim went from a bright, happy lad to moody as the Sea of Torments in winter. But that wasn't all. He started doing things-things I couldn't explain. He always had light feet, but I swear he could pop out on you in an empty room. And trying to find him when he didn't want to be found? Forget it. He was like a ghost."

"Yes, what is it?" She hesitated, but then plunged headlong into her next thought. "Is he a ... I don't know what you'd call it. A magician? A warlock?"

Kas shook his s.h.a.ggy head. "Nay, lady. I've known that boy all his life. I watched him grow up from a tiny babe, and I tell you on my life he didn't never go for that sort of mummery. No, it's all on account of his mother's blood. I'd heard the rumors. Every man who served under Calm's father had at one point or another. They said she'd come from the Other Side."

"The Other Side?" The phrase p.r.i.c.ked at something in her memorysomething she hadn't thought about in a very long time, a tale she'd been told as a child on stormy nights when her nursemaid would bundle her up in blankets and tell her scary stories. "Do you mean the fey lands? Like elf mounds and unicorns?"

He shrugged his broad shoulders. "It's a northern legend. Way up beyond the marches and the wastes is said to be another world, a place of eternal twilight. The Other Side we called it. Most folk pa.s.s it off as drivel, but you've seen Caim. His father was a young knight when he returned from beyond the marches with a new bride, and their child. The woman was a rare beauty, with skin like mormorion crystal polished to a high l.u.s.ter, and the deepest, darkest eyes you've ever seen. It didn't take long for the stories to start around, but rumors are like mice. Try to stomp them out, but there's always a few scurrying under the floorboards."

"What about you? Did you believe the stories?"

"I believed Calm's father was a decent man and an honest lord, which is as rare a thing as an honest wage these days, and a good friend. As for the rest, it wasn't none of my concern."

"Does Caim know?"

"Hard to say. He was too young to understand such things when his parents were alive. Later on, I tried to spare him as much pain as I could, little as it was."

As she listened, Josey felt something stir in her chest. Emotions swirled beneath her calm surface, and she realized she had been holding Caim at a distance all this time. He had risked his life for her, and never deceived her or tried to take advantage. Take away the fact of his profession and he was the finest man she'd ever known.

She took a sip of wine.

"Another snot?" Kas held up the wine bottle.

Josey was extending her cup when a noise creaked outside, like bony fingers sc.r.a.ping against the side of the cabin. She jumped in her seat. The crickets had fallen silent.

Kas clucked. "Don't fret. It's just the trees blowing. Nothing to worry- The door shivered in its frame as a heavy thud crashed against the oaken panels. Kas leapt out of his chair. Another blow flexed the stout planks. A splintered chunk of wood fell from the door. Josey clutched the table as a scream climbed up her throat.

Through the hole, Markus grinned at her.

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE.

-chill slid up Calm's backbone and lodged in the base of his skull. How could Ral know? They must have been followed. He had to get back to the cabin. But first he'd finish his business here.

He approached Ral with measured steps, balanced on the b.a.l.l.s of his feet. His knives came up like steel extensions of his hands, ready to carve out the life of this man who had turned his existence inside out. Ral stood calmly, hand resting on the sideboard. Caim didn't care. The b.a.s.t.a.r.d had to die.

As Caim gathered himself for a rush, a tingle ran across his body. Ral didn't move a muscle, but the room grew darker. For a moment, Caim thought his powers had emerged, unbidden again, but something was different. He didn't feel the pressure behind his breastbone. And yet, a p.r.i.c.kling tingle danced along his skin like a march of ten thousand ants. The lamp wick flickered.

Caim half turned, keeping Ral in view, as a cloaked figure stepped out of the shadows of the other room and stopped under the archway. Sweat broke out under Calm's arms. He hadn't heard a sound. Shadows played across the man's ruined, colorless features. The eyes staring back at him, cold and black, catapulted Caim into a maelstrom of dark memories.

He had seen those eyes in his dreams, night after night, but never thought to see them again in the flesh. He was sure of it, as sure as he knew his own name. Once again he stood behind the fence on his father's estate. Bodies littered the bloodied courtyard. His father knelt before a man in black robes. White hands held his father's sword as if examining its balance. Then, the blade struck with stunning swiftness and Calm's father crumbled. A tiny voice screamed in the night, but Caim pushed past the cacophony to focus on the mysterious figure. The cowl was pulled back to reveal pale, ruined features like melted tallow, features without remorse or pity. And those eyes, sunken within their hollow sockets. Just as he saw them now.

Caim shifted to face his father's killer.

The stranger didn't move. Wrapped in his voluminous cloak, he watched Caim in the manner of someone observing the movements of an insect. Caim eyeballed the span between them. Six paces. A long lunge, but he could cover that distance in a heartbeat. He ignored his jangling nerves as his fingers tightened around the hilts of his knives.

Pasty hands emerged from the cloaked man's sleeves. Each held a short dagger, no longer than an eating knife, but their blades were as black as the stranger's cloak. Black as his father's sword. A greasy finger slid down Calm's spine, but he shook it off. He wouldn't be put off by odd weaponry or eerie stares. He was beginning his leap when a flash to his right triggered long-honed instincts. He stopped and ducked as Ral's stiletto traced a path over his head.

A spasm pulsed in Calm's chest, sudden and painful, as if his heart were trying to escape from his rib cage. He clamped down on the feeling and pushed it back down into the depths. He couldn't lose control. Not now. Not now.

Sword in hand, Ral advanced beside the cloaked man. Caim edged away. He could take Ral, but the stranger was a wild card. He didn't look like a fighter, but his movements were sure and quick. Caim didn't know if he could beat them both at once.

"I'll give you one last chance." Ral sounded genuine despite the patronizing sneer plastered across his too-perfect face. "Join us and reap the benefits. You can be my lieutenant, elevated above the slime of this city. You'll have power, money, women-everything you've ever wanted."

Caim didn't bother answering. Because of him Josey was going to die. She might be dead already, but he could still perform one last act as penance for his failure. He eyed Ral's guard, sword held off-center, ready to strike at any angle, but it left a lot of territory unprotected. Caim bent his knees. The pressure in his chest expanded, making it hard to breathe.

"Your words are wasted on this one," the cloaked figure hissed. "Kill him and be done."

"Yes," Ral replied with a sigh. "Perhaps you're right, Levictus."

Levictus. Caim allowed his rage to filter through his body, down through his arms and legs, and banish the tingles from his flesh. His vengeance had a name.

Caim feinted at Ral, but shifted in midstride. His suete knives stabbed, and aimed for the chest and gut of his father's killer, but they found only air as the cloaked man drifted away like smoke on the breeze, then flowed back with astounding speed. The black blades wove at Caim in a complicated pattern. It was a fighting style he had never encountered before. The man flitted like a hummingbird, first coming from the left, and then the right, faster than anything Caim had ever seen.

At the same time, something wriggled in his peripheral vision. He spared a glance and was almost spitted on the cloaked man's knives before he extricated himself with a fast parry-and-backpedal. Tiny blobs of darkness detached from the room's shadows. They ran down the walls like monstrous black tears. For a moment, he panicked, thinking he had lost control of his powers again. But he still felt the pressure, bursting to be free. The inky things resembled the shadows he had summoned before, but they were different in some ineffable way. Meaner, perhaps. He thought he could hear them hissing like a nest of asps as they crawled across the floor. He deflected a thrust from Ral's sword. When he looked down, the darknesses were all around him.

But where had they come from? A sibilant hiss made him focus his attention forward as the cloaked man launched a concerted series of attacks. Caim dodged and wove. He spun his blades in circles to disengage, and then stomped forward to press an attack, anything to evade the cloaked man's sinister weapons. It was him. Somehow, the stranger had called the shadows, and that meant ...

Caim swallowed hard. He had never met anyone like him, someone who could also interact with shadows. If the cloaked man shared his abilities, what else might they have in common?

Caim hissed as a host of teeth, like tiny needles of ice, pierced his boots. He stomped on the floor to dislodge the tiny beasts, and received a nick across his left forearm as a black knife slipped past his guard. He jumped back before the next flurry of attacks could strike home.

Caim couldn't afford to examine the wound, but it burned like fire. He flexed his forearm as the sensation crept up into his shoulder. His side was beginning to throb from the exertion. Step by step Ral and Levictus backed him into a corner, away from the window. Something cold and revolting crawled up his calf. An image of his father's face, racked with pain, emerged from the depths of his mind. His mother was screaming. Caim dipped under a swipe and lunged, and his side erupted in agony, but he blocked out the pain and extended to his fullest range. Levictus knocked the thrust aside, but Calm's left-hand knife followed behind with a high slash. The cloaked man jerked back just in time to save his eyes. Instead, the knife's tip cut a gash across his face from mouth to temple.

He recovered faster than Caim antic.i.p.ated and came at him fiercer than before. Dark red blood coursed down his cheek. Caim hopped away from the teeming darknesses and maneuvered closer to the bed. Caim glanced across the coverlets. Ral had circled around the other side. The killer had one foot on the mattress, sword poised to strike. A lamp of blown gla.s.s hung over their heads.

As his enemies closed in, Caim leapt up onto the bed. He batted aside a cut from Ral and swung his other knife in a high arc as he dove from the bed to the tinkle of shattering gla.s.s. He landed behind his opponents, hit the carpet in a soft roll with a grunt, and spun around as he came to his feet. Burning oil rained from the ceiling. The bed's fine covers went up like tissue paper. In seconds the fire spread to a drapery on the wall and up the ceiling.

The cloaked man wheeled like an angry serpent as his shadowy minions flew across the room. Caim dove through the open window. He caught hold of a shutter as his legs cleared the sill. He hung there for a moment. Then, the silvery blur of a throwing knife sped past his face.

He let go and the pavement rushed up to meet him.

- "Get down!"

Josey slid under the table as Kas tore the spear down from its mounts. Its steely head shone with an oily glint. He rushed to the door just as the latch broke and a mob of Sacred Brothers poured inside.

Kas skewered the first Brother through the door. As the soldier fell, Kas whipped the spearhead around and stabbed another through the arm. Bright spurts of blood splashed on the floor. For a moment Josey saw a glimmer of hope. Maybe the old man could fend them off. But as Kas yanked his weapon free for another strike, the press of bodies shoved him back. His spear seemed a pitiful weapon against so many swords.

Josey screamed as something crashed through the window. A heavily built soldier with thick arms and a scraggly yellow beard crawled over the sill. She reached up onto the table for something to use as a weapon. Her fingers found a smooth, cool surface. She grabbed the half-empty bottle and hurled it at the invader. It struck him on the arm and broke, drenching his uniform in wine. The Brother yelped and clutched his elbow. Heartened, Josey reached for more ammunition. She threw plates and cutlery, but he batted the missiles aside and leapt at her. He caught her by the ankle. She kicked and screamed as he reeled her in like a fish on a line.

Kas staggered in the middle of the room. Blood streamed down his clothes from a host of wounds. He plied the spear with failing strength until a blade smote him across the brow. He stumbled to the floor with a gasp.

Josey shivered in the embrace of her captor. Wine from his soaked arm wetted her dress. His horrid breath whistled in her ear. He chuckled and took liberties in the placement of his hands as he hauled her to her feet. She squirmed and tried to bite him, and was rewarded with a sharp slap across the face.

"Now, none of that, Josephine," a voice spoke from the cabin's entrance.

A shudder seized hold of Josey as Markus stepped into the cabin. Bandages peeked from underneath a striking new uniform: a white jacket and pants with golden insignia along the sleeves and stiff collar. It was the uniform of the grand master of the Sacred Brotherhood. Why is he ... ? Why is he ... ?

Josey's questions fled at the hideous sight of his face. The flesh of his sunken cheeks was rippled and crusted black. Drool leaked from the wet sores where his lips had been; they pulled back in a terrible grimace as he stood over Kas. The big man's eyes were open, but gla.s.sy and unfocused. Blood seeped between the fingers clutching his ample belly.

"Another valiant defender," Markus said. "You seem to collect them like pets."

"Leave him alone! Take me, but let him be."

Markus held up a gloved finger as the Brothers surrounded Kas. "Don't waste your breath. There's no rescue coming for you this time."

While their brethren stomped the old man with their hobnailed boots, two soldiers drew long daggers and approached Josey. A scream hovered in Josey's breast as the sharp instruments came toward her, but she refused to release it. She was a princess, heir to the throne of Nimea. She wouldn't debase herself with pleading or crying. She would show them how a lady of imperial blood could die.

Markus straightened his cuffs. "Do you like my new look?"

Josey hurled her most defiant glare at him over the shoulders of the soldiers. "How much gold did it take to convince you to betray your oath?"

"Times are changing, Princess," he said. "You would be wise to change with them."

"Go to h.e.l.l."

He chuckled as the knives sliced off her clothing. "I was too kind before on the waterfront. This time, I'm going to take my time and enjoy it."

Josey gasped as she was lifted onto the table, the rough wood abrading her naked skin. Calloused hands pried apart her legs and exposed her intimate parts for all to see. She kicked and connected with something squishy. A gloved fist smashed into her mouth. Blood dripped from her lips, but she smiled through the pain. Let them do their worst. She wouldn't go quietly.

But a cold worm twisted in Josey's belly as Markus appeared over her. The scars on his face oozed clear pus.

"Don't worry, girl. I was told to return you alive and unharmed. We're not going to hurt you."

He unbuckled his trousers. "Just a little tickle."

Josey screamed as a lance of red-hot pain penetrated between her thighs. Golden starbursts filled the black s.p.a.ce behind her clenched eyelids. So lovely, they carried her away from the horrors of the waking world.