Jon Sprunk - Shadow's master

Another Northman swung a long club that looked like a sheared-off fence post. Caim dipped in behind the swing and stabbed the Northman in the thigh before he could bring the cudgel back around. Instead of falling back, the man stepped up closer. It would have been a simple thing for Caim to plunge both knives into the northerner's unprotected belly and rip him open, but he hesitated. Big hands grabbed him around the neck from behind. The wooden post crashed into his stomach, and Caim gasped as the breath rushed from his lungs. A sharp point dug into the back of his shoulder. Caim dipped his chin and spun out of the grasp of the rough fingers gouging his throat. His knives lashed out, and the Northman behind him fell to his knees, his slippery entrails spilling to the floor.

Caim crouched under another swing of a club. The Northmen could see better in the dark than he anticipated, but just like the fight against the Suete, he moved too fast for them to catch. A vicious, rusty shank stabbed at him. Caim knocked the thrust aside and ran the tip of his suete knife up the Northman's arm, splitting the sleeve of his wooly coat and tearing a deep gouge in the skin underneath. As his enemy retreated, making room for the others, Caim maneuvered back toward the exit.

He was almost to the door when a burst of light exploded behind his eyes, accompanied by a blinding headache. Caim put out his left hand as his balance wavered. It felt like he'd taken a blow to the head, but he didn't recall the impact.

Caim reversed his grip on both knives as his vision cleared. Pushing away from the wall, he moved like black quicksilver through the warehouse. Blood dripped from his blades, coated his gloves. Twice he evaded blows that he had been certain would connect. The Northmen fell back from his onslaught. He felt the shadows creeping along the ceiling, huddled in the eaves, hungry to get into the action. Finally he gave in. Come on, you little bastards. Get a taste.

An ice-cold pain ripped through Caim's chest. His breath froze in his lungs. Unable to move, Caim watched the advancing Northmen. Their weapons rose up. Just another couple steps would bring them within range. Caim fought to break through the sudden paralysis. Answer me, damn you! Come and-

Caim gasped as the pain drained out of him as quick as it had come. Suddenly he could move again, and almost tripped over his own feet backing away. But he needn't have bothered. The shadows rained down from the rafters. His ambushers batted at them, their efforts becoming frantic as the shadows covered them in growing numbers. Grunts and curses turned to yells, and then to hoarse screams. Wood crackled as one man tried to dive through a boarded window and became stuck in the half-broken boards, driving the splintered edges deeper as he thrashed. His cries became choked, gasping, and then he fell silent.

Two men made for the exit. The door crashed open, and three men appeared. Malig's familiar bellow filled the frigid air as he entered in front of Aemon and Dray. Caim reined in the shadows. It was harder than ever before. His arms and legs shook, and a sharp throbbing took up residence over his eyes, but they slowly retreated to the room's dim corners.

As Caim took a deep breath and wiped his brow with the back of a sleeve, he saw his crew had matters well in hand. The last Northmen were dead. Malig shook the blood from his axe while Dray peered about the room. Aemon stood back, breathing hard, his weapon clean. They gathered as Caim approached.

“Looks like you were right,” Dray said. “You figure them for thieves?”

Caim looked down at the gore-streaked faces. “What else? We don't know anyone here.”

He hoped that was true. They'd taken pains to appear like caravan guards, beneath anyone's notice.

Malig hiked a thumb toward the door. “We got your friend outside trussed up like a Yuletide goat. You want to gut him and see what spills out?”

“No.” Caim put his knives away and left his hands behind his back to hide their trembling. “Let's get back to the hostel. We're leaving.”

“What about finding a guide?” Aemon asked.

The shadows waited. Caim felt them watching from the edges of the room, felt their hunger. “We'll get directions to the next town and pick up someone there.”

Malig exchanged a look with Dray, but it was Aemon who spoke up. “Where are we headed, Caim? You haven't said nothing since we crossed the mountains.”

Caim started toward the door, ignoring the gazes of his crew and the newly dead alike. “North.”

Darkness reached down from the chamber's high ceiling and distant walls to enfold Balaam as he stepped out onto the receiving platform. The sensation was both familiar and disconcerting to one who had been born under the ebon skies of the Shadowlands, a bitter remembrance of a home he would never see again. Wrapping himself in his cloak, he descended the long, winding steps to the floor far below.

He left the chamber through a mammoth doorway and passed into a corridor sheathed in polished onyx. His footsteps echoed as he navigated the empty halls and passed by windows of frosted glass looking down on the citadel below, a vast, empty city of glittering black stone.

Six Northmen, armed with poleaxes, stood before the entrance to the Grand Hall. As he approached, the bronze valve doors opened, and a slim figure wrapped in a long cloak emerged. Wisps of brown hair poked from under the deep cowl. A mortal. He paused to let her go by, and then entered the chamber.

Curving walls of alabaster enclosed the great hall. Black pillars carved from obsidian reached to the arched ceiling. Accents of wrought iron and black diamond glistened in the luminance of smoky braziers. Elegant women and men in somber dress stood about the room. Their faces were impassive, as if they were watching a pageant, while slaves in a variety of skin shades, from pale white to deepest ebony, passed among them offering libations and whatever else the lords and ladies desired. Here and there a noble supped on the sweet liquor of blood and agony from an accommodating vessel. Despite the languorous heat radiating from the feedings, Balaam's gaze was drawn to the colossal basalt throne at the far end. A powerful presence seized him as he stepped across the threshold, like an iron fist closing around his throat. The Master reclined in a swathe of shadow, hidden from sight, though his power dominated the hall.

Balaam moved behind the crowd and found a vantage point where he could see the dais. Two of his brother Talons, their features concealed behind steely visors, stood at the bottom of the steps. Members of the Shadow Lord's elite cadre of enforcers, only they were permitted to bear arms in the Master's presence.

Six mortals clad in animal furs-their faces obscured behind great, bushy beards and long locks of hair in strange hues of orange, yellow, and brown-stood before the assemblage. One of them, a stout man with strands of gray shot through his ruddy hair and a stuffed bear head perched on his shoulder, addressed the court in the brusque tongue of the humans.

“O Great Lord, defender of the north, bringer of the grasses which feed and sustain us. For all the gifts you have given to us, we pay you this homage.”

While he spoke, his kinsmen laid objects on the floor-bundles of cloth from the Southlands, tusks of ivory, cedar chests filled with incense, and a stack of silver ingots.

“And one hundred new slaves,” the Northman said, “captured in raids against your enemies. All this we give to you, Great Lord.”

The Northman finished with a deep bow. As he and his men backed away, a voice from atop the dais spoke. “You and your people honor us, Chief Vanar.” It was not the Master, but a robed figure standing beside the throne. Lord Malphas, the Master's majordomo. His voice clipped each word with precise inflection. “In his infinite generosity, the Master grants the Bear tribe additional hunting lands in the west and permission to collect tithes in the Jurengaard region.”