Jon Sprunk: Shadow's master

He straightened up in the saddle of his sturdy piebald gelding as a chill touched the back of his neck, but instead of Kit's whisper in his ear, he was treated to a picture in his head of six swarthy men in buckskin coats crouched behind a shelf of rock. Another shadow caressed his ankle through his boot and showed him seven more men in similar garb moving out from the cover of an outcropping. Caim let out a slow breath. He had expected it to start with arrows, or maybe a cascade of rocks. Instead, they approached boldly on foot, slouched low with long knives extended like silver tongues in the dying light. Familiar knives.

Caim sent the shadows out to keep watch. Where was Kit? He hadn't seen her since last night. But he didn't have time to ponder her whereabouts as a high-pitched yell echoed down the pass, and the men he'd spied appeared both in front of and behind the caravan. Only thirteen, but the Suete were renowned for their violent disposition. They didn't wait on pretense.

The driver in the lead wagon fell out of his seat with a throwing blade buried in his neck before he could set the brake. Teromich jumped off as the wagon kept rolling, horses neighing, and a Suete-a swarthy young man with smooth cheeks and bright blue eyes-came up behind the merchant. A spear thrust forced the young Suete to jump back before he could make the kill. Aemon swung his steed between them, giving Teromich a chance to scramble away. Then the rest of the guards arrived. The three armsmen had the awkward look of overgrown farm boys who had decided wearing a sword was more interesting than shoveling manure. Two of them went down in the first pass. Caim's crew fared better. Malig kept a hillman at bay with his broadaxe while Dray and Aemon took on a Suete together and nearly rode him into the ground as they galloped past. Dray came around quicker and slid from his steed to meet the Suete on foot. The hillman closed with frightening speed. Dray barely fended off the lightning-quick attacks. One stumble would have spelled his end, but Aemon's spear hurtled over his shoulder and slammed into the Suete. Side by side, the brothers moved around the caravan looking for another foe.

Caim wheeled his horse around with a kick and a jerk of the reins. The seven Suete behind the caravan spread out as they approached. They seemed to be taking their time, sizing up the defenses. Caim spotted some gray hair among the men and understood. These were the old hands, the veteran warriors of the tribe. They weren't prone to the recklessness of youth, and that made them especially dangerous.

As he slid from the saddle and drew his knives, the hillmen eyed his suete blade. A look passed among the Suete, and one of them came forward alone to meet him. Caim waited on the balls of his feet, his weight balanced, until the hillman came within arm's reach. The shrill cries of striking steel echoed from the stony walls of the pass as their knives arced and collided. The warrior had rows of small white scars across his forehead and down his cheeks. His long hair whipped loose in the wind. He was good, but he couldn't match Caim's speed. After a pair of quick strikes, the hillman fell to his knees, bleeding from his armpit and lower abdomen.

Caim started to deliver the mercy blow when a silvery blur zipped in the corner of his vision. Caim knocked the throwing blade away with his seax knife and turned to a pair of Suete warriors advancing from his flank at a rapid trot. As he settled into a defensive stance, the hillmen separated to come at him from opposite sides.

Both warriors had the same fierce eyes. Eyes like hunting cats. One hillman darted in with a low attack, and Caim pivoted, moving so fast with the power of the shadows flowing through his limbs that he almost tripped over his own feet in the rush to deflect and counter. The warrior's comrade rushed in with an attempted rescue, but Caim wove around the extended knife point. His own suete blade flashed once, and the second warrior staggered back. His blood looked like rich red wine dripping down his hide shirt.

A howl alerted Caim as the rest of the hillmen charged him. Caim spun away, but took a shallow cut across the back of his wrist through the cuff of his glove. He deflected a broad, horizontal slash, and then another, and a third. Their knives connected with sharp rings and sprang away, only to return again, but Caim was always a step ahead. He was halfway into a blocking thrust when a tremor ran up through his legs and his vision dimmed. He almost stumbled, but righted himself before the Suete on either side could connect with vicious slashes. His eyesight returned in time to reveal two warriors charging at him, their knives held low for disemboweling cuts. Caim reached out to the shadows clustered in the crevices of the canyon walls as he moved his knives in position to parry. An instant before the hillmen reached him, an avalanche of darkness poured down over them. Caim retreated as the Suete spun about and hacked at the shadows tearing into their skin, and he was reminded of Lord Arion Eviskine, the duke's son; how he and his men had tried to battle the shadows and lost, though their deaths had not been his doing.

Spots of blood appeared on the dry rock of the canyon floor under the hillmen as they rolled on the ground trying to dislodge the darknesses that had infiltrated their clothing. Dizziness washed over Caim, and he forced himself to look away. Farther up the pass, the fighting was over. Dray and Aemon were helping Teromich out from under a wagon while the merchant made frantic gestures.

Caim took a breath. His pulse pounded in his eardrums. The sick feeling was fading, but the weakness, the dizziness-they were too much like the spells he used to suffer. And the shadows. He could hear them feasting on the cooling blood as he cleaned his knives. The sun's last rays caught the wavy temper lines along the seax blade. Keegan had given him this knife the day he left Liovard. It had belonged to the young man's father. It was good steel, more valuable than gold up here in the middle of nowhere. Caim slid the seax back into its sheath and knelt down to pick up a knife from the hand of a dead warrior. It was heavier than his suete , the metal of the blade less refined, the horn hilt smooth from use. Nothing elegant about it. He dropped it in the dirt.

“Hey!” Malig shambled over. He had a face that looked like it had been hacked from old pinewood with a hatchet. His wide-set eyes gave him a thoughtful appearance, but Caim hadn't seen much evidence of that in the headstrong clansman. Still, he was reliable in a fight, and bigger than some two men put together. He had a host of scars on his hands and arms, a couple on his face, and he'd picked up a few fresh ones since they'd left Eregoth.

It had taken the four of them-him, Malig, and the brothers Dray and Aemon-almost a month to cross the Great North Forest, which was as wild and savage a place as Caim ever wanted to see again. North of the forest, they had hooked up with Teromich's caravan, posing as experienced guards down on their luck. The meager pay hadn't mattered to Caim as long as the merchant was going north. As it turned out, Teromich was one of the few traders who dared to venture over these mountains to deal with the Northmen on the other side.

Malig snatched up the fallen knife and added it to the three on his belt. “I can get a fair bit of coin for these pig-stickers.”

The brothers walked up behind him, both covered in spatters of blood with a few cuts and scrapes, but nothing that looked too serious. Dray was a few inches taller than Caim and the murkiest of the three in complexion and mood. His black hair was hacked off above his bushy eyebrows, but hung long in the back. “Yeah,” he said. “And you can get your throat cut if a Suete sees you carrying them.”