James Clemens - Hinterland

Tylar stared out the Eye. Tashijan rose ahead. Its highest tower-Stormwatch-glowed like a lighthouse along a rocky coast. But closer still, the sky around the flippercraft swirled with eddies of snow. With every breath, it fell harder. They had lost the race.

The storm had caught them.

Kathryn knew something was wrong as she neared her hermitage. The door was cracked open, and her maid Penni waited in the hall. The young girl stood tugging at a brown curl that had escaped her white bonnet. She startled when Kathryn neared, finally realizing the shadowknight approaching her in full cloak was indeed the castellan.

The maid jumped, offered a fast curtsy, then began to stammer, with a glance toward the open door. “I-I-I couldn’t-I didn’t know-”

“Calm yourself, Penni.”

Kathryn allowed the shadows to shed from her cloth, revealing herself fully. She had climbed the tower in a hurry, cloaked in Grace, seeking to avoid recognition. It seemed every other person sought some boon from her: shadowknights, handservants, or underfolk. She was just returning from her most recent duty, greeting the last of the retinues to arrive-from Oldenbrook-making sure the party was settled and formally welcoming them. They seemed very excited to present some special gift to Argent and Tylar at the morning’s ceremony.

But Kathryn hadn’t inquired further.

She had already been late.

Tylar’s flippercraft was due to dock in less than a bell. The warden had prepared an elaborate welcome, including drums and trumpets. She was expected to attend-and in more than a worn shadowcloak.

Now some new trouble waited to be addressed.

“Take a breath and tell me what’s wrong,” she said to Penni.

The maid had served the hermitage for longer than Kathryn had worn the diadem of her station. Penni had been servant to the former castellan, the elderly Mirra, long vanished and surely dead.

“I thought he was a knight,” Penni said. “What with there being so many strangers, coming and going.”

Kathryn understood the maid’s consternation. Tashijan’s knightly residents had tripled in number, gathering from near and fear, a mad rabble of ravens come to witness the momentous event.

“He claimed to be your friend,” Penni continued in a rush. “Come on urgent matters, he says, so I let him into your rooms.” The maid lowered her voice to a whisper. “But then he let his masklin drop. It were no knight.”

Kathryn relaxed.

There was only one person that would be so bold as to masquerade himself as a shadowknight within the very fold of the Order. Rogger. She had not heard a single word since the thief had vanished into the throngs below. He must have donned such a disguise so he might attend Tylar’s welcome. It would be good to hear what tidings Rogger had gleaned from listening to the low whispers and the ale-addled braggings, words that seldom reached as high as her hermitage.

Kathryn stepped past Penni.

At her elbow, the maid finished her breathless tale. “Though he has a soft tongue, he was too fearsome for me to stay in the same room-so I waited out here.”

Kathryn frowned at the faintheartedness of the young girl. Who would ever find Rogger fearsome? Glad for a familiar face, she pushed into her room with a creak of the door hinges.

Penni shadowed her, keeping behind her cloak. “I’ve heard stories of their ilk,” she said. “Painting their faces with ash to hide their true names, even from each other.”

Kathryn realized her mistake.

It was not Rogger who had come calling.

The tall figure turned from her hearth, the only light in the room. He indeed wore a shadowcloak. She noted how its edges vanished into the darkness beyond. And his face was indeed daubed black, traditional for members of the Black Flag, the murderous guild of pirates and brigands.

He shed his cloak’s hood to reveal a knotted braid of hair made snow white by years under salt and sea. Many years. Centuries in fact. Here stood the near-mythic figure of the Flaggers’ leader. Beneath his cloak he wore a fine cut of black leathers, from boots to collar, and at his waist he carried a sheathed sword, Serpentfang, a blade as famous as the knight who once wielded it.

“It is good to see you again, Castellan Vail,” Krevan said with a slight bow.

She crossed into the room. “Why have you come, Ser Kay?”

The man frowned. “Raven ser Kay died long ago. It is merely Krevan now.”

Krevan the Merciless, she thought to herself. Three centuries ago, he had been a legendary shadowknight. But he had hidden a great secret from all, a secret exposed upon the point of a sword, one driven through his heart. He had not died from his wound-for he had no heart. Born among the Wyr, an enemy of the Order, Raven ser Kay was unlike any other man. Since the founding of the first god-realm, Wyr-lords had been churning dark alchemies in their hidden and forbidden forges, attempting to imbue man with immortality. Krevan was one of their great successes. He had been born with a living blood that flowed through his veins without the need for the beat of a heart, thus slowing his aging.

But exposed as one of the Wyr’s cursed offspring, the former Raven Knight had to die, to vanish into myths. And out of those mists of time, Krevan was born anew, embittered, turning his skills as a knight to less noble pursuits. The heartless became the merciless.

Still, the man had not forgotten his honor.

“How may I help you?” Kathryn asked. “Have you come for Tylar’s knighting?”

Krevan waved such a thought away. “A cloak does not make a man.” He stepped from the hearth toward her. There was an urgency to the motion. A hand reached out for her.

She took a reflexive step back. Her own cloak surged around her, ready to fold her into the shadows and grant speed to her limbs.

“You have the cursed skull,” he said. “The skull of the rogue god.”

Kathryn was taken aback by his statement-then remembered Rogger’s story of another who had been hunting the same talisman, someone with a face painted black. So it hadn’t been just a low-level Flagger seeking a fast splash of silver. The desire had come from the very top.

“What interest is the skull to you?” she asked.

His eyes flashed and a ferocity entered his voice. “I must have it. It should never have been brought here. Especially here. Especially now.”

“Why? What do you mean?”

Krevan suddenly was at her side, moving with the swiftness of shadows. He clutched her elbow. “I must have it!”

Penni squeaked by the door.

Before Krevan could offer any further explanation, a splintering crash echoed from above. The floor shook.

Everyone froze.

A single trumpet blared high above, a warning of fire, a call for buckets. The sound of pounding feet echoed from the hall outside, heard through the crack.

Kathryn turned as someone rapped hard on her door. It creaked farther open with the impact. Penni blocked it with a toe.

“Castellan Vail!” a familiar voice called.

It was Lowl, manservant to the warden. Kathryn turned to Krevan-but the leader of the Black Flaggers was gone from her side. She twisted around. He had vanished into the shadows and away. She noted a slight waft to the heavy drapery over the windows that opened onto her private balcony.

She knew that if she yanked back the drapes, she’d find nothing but a window cracked open and the balcony just as empty.

Krevan was gone.

Through the open window, shouts echoed, coming from the top of Stormwatch. Kathryn pictured the high docks that surmounted the tower. Only one flippercraft had still been expected this day.

Another trumpet blast reverberated, sounding strident and panicked.

“Castellan Vail!”