Jon Sprunk - Shadow's master

“We face a terrible question,” Abraxus said. “The crusade does not progress as we had hoped. We are losing ground on every side. It is no secret there has been trouble in the east, but with the loss of Eregoth…”

Not the loss of your daughter, Master?

“Pardon me,” Balaam said. “But perhaps if you took a hand personally. Just an appearance in the field would bolster-”

“No. My place is here, seeing to the completion of the citadel.”

“A wise policy,” Malphas murmured. “To control the campaign from a central location.”

Balaam said nothing as Abraxus continued. “But the Light is strong in this world. Our power diminishes with every passing year. We need the scion alive. Do you understand?”

Balaam bowed his head. He didn't understand, not fully, but he knew his duty. “It shall be as you command. I will find the scion and bring him here.”

“Good. Go at once.”

When Balaam looked up, the Shadow Lord and Malphas were gone. Balaam considered the black throne, and all the losses their people had suffered since coming to this realm. This is not the empire we once knew.

Balaam turned and departed.

“You okay, boss?” Aemon asked.

Sitting on his bed shirtless, Caim nodded as the needle pushed through the skin of his shoulder, and he tried to think about something else.

Dray came over carrying his gear and bedroll, all bundled up. “Fuck me! You got more scars than I ever seen.”

Caim looked down at his body. The scars were like a roadmap, tracing the violent history of his life. Knife wounds, punctures, burn marks, and enough stitch tracks to sew a fair-sized quilt. He couldn't remember how he'd gotten most of them. The fights and jobs all blended into a crimson fog.

Malig bit into an ice-pepper as he pointed to Caim's side. “Is that one from a spear?”

That one Caim remembered like it was yesterday. Carrying Josey over the side of the pier, the sudden pain like a mule kick in the back, and then the icy cold of the bay waters closing over them. “Crossbow.”

“Damn.”

When Aemon finished his amateur doctoring, Caim eased into his shirt and laced his jerkin over the top of it. The back was a little damp from the blood, but it would dry out on the road. “You three head out to the stables and get the horses,” he said. “I'll meet you there after I settle our bill.”

Caim buckled on his knives as the clansmen left the room. A touch of the weakness he'd felt at the storehouse still lingered with him. His balance was slightly off, and a chill had settled into his bones. Maybe he was coming down with something. Just what I need when we've got who-knows-how-many days of travel ahead of us.

The common room was packed. Servers bustled back and forth between the bar and the tables. A faint haze smelling of rotten leaves hung in the air.

“Wow,” Kit said as she appeared beside him. “Too bad we're leaving. This place is full of interesting characters.”

“Nice seeing you again,” he muttered under his breath.

She patted his hurt shoulder. “Poor darling. Good work back there, by the way. I was wondering if you'd be able to pull it off.”

Caim started making his way through the crowd of people. He ground his teeth together when a laughing Northman holding two mugs jostled his shoulder. When he got to the bar, he waved to get the attention of the nearest bartender, but he had to wait a few minutes before someone saw him.

“We're heading out,” he said over the noise. “I need to pay up.”

While she went to find the owner, Caim put his back to the bar and surveyed the crowd. He didn't see any familiar faces.

Kit eased up beside him, mimicking his pose against the counter. “He's not here.”

“Who?”

“Svart. Last I checked in, he was laid up in some woman's shack with snow packed around his jaw. Malig thumped him pretty good.”

The innkeeper shuffled over. “You leaving?”

“Yes. How much for last night?”

The innkeeper put up two thick fingers. “You pay for two night.”

Caim held his gaze. After several heartbeats, he asked, “How much?”

“Two big-heads.”

Caim felt a sigh rise from his chest. A big-head was the northern term for a double-weight golden soldat. It was more than most people in Othir made in a fortnight. Up here, it was a gods-damn fortune. “You want to try again?”

“Eh? You no pay?” The innkeeper glared under thickset eyebrows.

Caim growled to himself. This whole place was a nightmare. He reached into his pouch and plunked down two large gold coins. He started to leave, but the innkeeper said something in the northern tongue that sounded like a curse and started rattling off to the tap-woman while holding up the coins. Caim started to argue that they weren't counterfeit when he saw the markings on the faces. They were Nimean mint. Shit. Those are going to stand out around here.

He turned to go and almost ran into a man blocking his path. Caim started to go around, but the man put up a hand. Caim stopped, his right hand slipping down behind his back. The man was lean, an inch or two shorter than him. He wore a motley collection of scuffed leathers with a pair of rawhide gloves tucked in to one of two belts wrapped around his waist. The only obvious weapon was a long knife on his hip, almost as big as a suete.

Caim waited, his legs tensed. Then Kit floated over. “Oh. You've met Egil.”

“You're Caim?” the man asked.

It took everything Caim had not to reply with the man's name and see how that grabbed him. This guy didn't look like one of Svart's henchmen, but Caim was done with guessing. “I don't know you.”

“Name's Egil.”

“What do you want?”

“It's more what I heard you want. It's a little thick in here. Want to talk outside?”

Caim looked over Egil's shoulder. Aemon and the others were already outside. He felt the shadows stir. Then Kit's hand passed through his arm. “Be good!” she said. “He's a nice guy.”

Another good egg, huh, Kit? Okay. I'll play along.

“All right,” he said. “After you.”

Egil pushed through the press of bodies. Caim watched for covert nods or signals to anyone else in the room, but didn't see anything suspicious.

Kit hovered in front of him, keeping pace as he headed to the door. “Teromich sent him. He's a real guide.”

“Now you care?” Caim whispered, and covered it with a cough as he put on his gloves.

She pouted. “That's not fair. I was trying to find someone like him when you met that Svart. Anyway, I came in time to get you out of that mess.”

He scowled at her description of the fight at the storehouse, and Kit blew him a kiss before she sank into the floor.

The wind hit Caim in the face as he exited. If anything, it felt colder than before. With no sun, he wondered how cold it would get on the wastes, and then he remembered where they were headed. The cold was the least of his problems.

Egil walked a few paces from the door. Light shined from the windows of the surrounding buildings-the brothel next door gave off enough for them to see each other.

“The trader, Teromich, told me you're looking for a guide,” Egil said. “He said I could find you and your men here.”

“How did you know it was me at the bar?”

Egil smiled. He was missing an upper front tooth. “He gave me a description. Not too tall, long scar on the cheek, and the meanest eyes he'd ever seen. You fit the bill.”

The man had a quiet, almost cautious, way about him, but he also sounded confident.

“We're going north.” Caim rolled his shoulders and felt the sutures pull. He didn't know anything about the wastes beyond what little he'd learned from Kas, but he had a suspicion that the farther north they went, the more dangerous it would get.