Martin Hengst - The Last Swordmage

Eyes glowing with blue fire, it snarled, its powerful legs bunching, preparing to spring. There was a scream from the alley behind Tia. Someone, possibly one of the revelers from the square, had stumbled into the alley and found something horribly at odds with the pleasantness of the evening.

The creature’s ears swiveled, its fangs glistening with spittle in the dim light of the far off lantern. With a low growl, it leapt off the way it had come, leaving Tia standing there with her blade in her hand and a body at her feet. There were shouts behind her now. She knew that she should sheath the dagger and check on the robed figure laid out before her, but she couldn’t seem to make her body obey. Her arm dropped to her side, the dagger clasped lightly in fingers made nerveless by shock.

Someone grabbed her and wheeled her away from the body, pushing her up against the wall. They plucked the dagger from her hand.

“He’s dead,” someone said. It was a man’s voice, flat and devoid of emotion.

“Let me through,” someone snarled, and the growing crowd reluctantly parted enough for a man clad in silver armor to squeeze through. He carried a large lantern and it registered somewhere in the back of Tia’s mind that it was a street lantern. They took them off the poles. That’s obviously how they lit them. It made perfect sense. Another part of her screamed that none of this made sense. That there was no single part of any of this that made any sense at all. She wanted to silence that nagging voice, to tell it to shut up and leave her alone, but it kept nagging at her, like the echo of a pebble dropped down a deep well.

“She stabbed him!” That voice was shrill, a woman’s on the verge of hysteria. “I saw it.”

“There’s no blood,” Tia heard herself say. She meant on her dagger. There wouldn’t be any blood on the dagger, since she hadn’t done anything. A slow thought bubbled up to her. Someone had taken the dagger, she didn’t know who.

“There’s plenty of blood, you silly bitch.” A man’s voice, hard and vindictive.

“Silence!” The knight’s roar caused the crowd to back up a few steps. He lifted the lantern and shone it directly into Tia’s face. She squinted against the light, but recognized him easily. It was the knight she had spoken to in the square. How long ago had that been? It seemed like years. If there was any time for the Captain to appear, as if out of nowhere, like he did…now was that time.

“I know you,” the knight said slowly. “I spoke to you earlier this evening.”

Tia nodded, feeling bile rise up in the back of her throat. She was determined not to add humiliation to the events of the evening by vomiting all over her boots, or worse, the knight himself. A leaden hand went to her throat, fighting back the wave of nausea that crashed over her, threatening to carry her away.

The gesture was ill-advised. The knight held the lantern closer. A flicker of, something, flashed across his features. So quickly that Tia wasn’t sure she even saw it. His thick fingers went to the end of the scarf and tugged it free. The thin fabric unwound itself readily, as if it was eager to give up her darkest secret. As it fell, there was a gasp from the crowd. Her collar stood out in black damnation against her pale skin.

“A slave!”

“Run her through!”

“Take her head!”

“ENOUGH!” The knight bellowed, bringing the butt of his halberd down on the pavers so hard that a few sparks leapt from the bottom of the weapon. “You lot go about your business. There will be no vigilante justice here tonight. Not while I still stand.”

He glowered at them, and the crowd began to disperse. In a few moments, the only men standing in the alley were the knight and two men clad in robes identical to that of the corpse. One of them held her dagger. He was turning it over in his hands, holding it toward the light of the knight’s lantern.

“There’s no blood on this dagger, Valyn.” The man tipped the blade toward the knight, showing him the proof. He used the tip of the dagger as a pointer, first at the cobblestones and then at the body. “Plenty of blood on the stones and his robes. You’re not going to tell me this dagger struck the blow.”

“I’m not going to tell you anything, Faxon.” Valyn propped his weapon against the wall and scrubbed at his face with his now free hand. “Now, slave, tell me exactly what happened.”

“She has a name, Valyn.” Faxon stepped forward, the other robed man a step behind him, a living shadow. “What’s your name girl?”

“Tiadaria, Sir.”

“Where is your Master, Tiadaria?”

“The Captain had a meeting with Torus in the palace.”

Faxon and Valyn exchanged startled glances. It was obvious that whatever answers they had expected from her, this wasn’t it.

“The Captain,” Valyn muttered, as if he couldn’t believe his ears. “You don’t think she means-”

“Who else is referred to as The Captain, by practically everyone in the Imperium, Valyn?”

“I don’t believe it. Not even for a minute.” A flush began to creep up from his neck and colored his cheeks.

“Easy, Valyn.” Faxon clapped the man on the shoulder before he turned back to Tia. “Just to be clear, you’re saying that your Master is Royce MacDungren? Former Captain of the Grand Army of the Imperium and war hero to the realm?”

Tiadaria nodded.

“Great Gatzbin’s gonads,” he swore softly. Faxon motioned for his shadow to lift the body. “We need to get to the palace, Valyn. Right now.”

Royce MacDungren, Former Captain of the Grand Army of the Imperium and war hero to the realm was furious. White-hot anger boiled just below the surface of his carefully composed and impassive facade. The crier had come racing into the council chamber with news that a slave had murdered a mage. The Lord-Knight of the Guard and Master Faxon were on their way to the palace, he said. He took two breaths fit for a dragon, and then asked his sovereign if his grace cared to return a message. Heron thanked him for his service and dismissed him.

The wizened king turned to Royce and Torus, subjecting them to a scrutiny that would have made lesser men pale. “What do you boys know of this?”

“Nothing, your grace.” Royce replied quickly, the lie bitter and heavy on his tongue.

“I won’t tolerate liars, Royce, not even a man as highly decorated and honorable as you, MacDungren. Your jaw could have cracked walnuts when the crier said slave. So what’s going on?”

In for a fraction, in for the crown, Royce thought. Though the recounting was hurried, he ran the king through the events of the last few weeks. He omitted the fact that there were two bodies burned down to ash and bone off the trade road to the far north of King’s Reach. There was such a thing as too much honesty. When he had finished, the king shook his head, scratching the wisps of hair over his ears.

“You certainly don’t like doing things the simple way, do you Royce?”

Torus snorted. The king eyed him for a moment before he went on.

“Would she have done this?”

“No,” Royce replied emphatically, shaking his head. “I don’t know what happened out there, but she wouldn’t murder someone.”

“Not even to keep her secret?” Torus’s voice was quiet and measured.

Royce looked at him. The doubt was justified. Slaves were known to go to desperate lengths to keep their status a secret. To keep the shame and indignity at bay for as long as they could. The figures here didn’t sum. Royce was positive that whatever had happened, the girl hadn’t been the aggressor.

“No.” His simple reply held grave weight behind it, and Torus turned away, unable to hold his gaze.