Jon Sprunk - Shadow’s Lure

Josey backed away as Major Volek loomed before her, his face half in shadow. The illuminated half was as grim and gray as the stone of the cavern. He had donned a tabard over his armor. Its deep crimson cloth was almost black in the dim light, the golden circle emblazoned on the breast shimmering like a sullied halo. A spasm seized Josey’s chest. We’ve been a pack of fools.

Volek said nothing, but the truth stared at her from his eyes, mirror-smooth orbs devoid of emotion. His sword, dripping with Hubert’s blood, swung toward her. Josey retreated faster.

“This was all a trap,” she said. “Does the prelate know?”

The major approached with measured steps. Josey looked around for something, anything, she could use as a weapon. Her knife, still stuck in the jerking assassin, was on the other side of the chamber. There were no rocks in sight larger than a robin’s egg.

“How much is Innocence paying you?”

She flinched as her back touched the wall. There was nowhere to go. Her mind devised a dozen stratagems and rejected them all. She needed a weapon. She needed Caim. This is your fault, damn you, Caim. You left me and you left our baby. Rage poured through her, mixing with the terror. She had to fight.

“I won’t insult you by offering money. I just want to know the truth before I die.”

He stopped a pace away from her. “It isn’t a matter of money.”

“What then, Major? What gift or favor is worth the life of your empress?”

Volek’s cheek muscles twitched. “You are not my empress! The True Church is the only authority in this world. You’re just a petty despot dragging this country into the sewer.”

She clenched her fists. “I am the lawful heir of Emperor Leonel.

I-”

“You are a harlot and a usurper!”

“And you will be a murderer, Major.” Josey looked around for something to help. But there was nothing. She was alone. “Is that how you want to be remembered? As a common criminal?”

“I will be the greatest patriot in history.” Flecks of spittle clung to his lips as he raised his weapon. “You have betrayed the Faith and your countrymen. And for that you shall di-”

A flash of incandescent brilliance filled the cavern an instant before the floor tilted under Josey’s feet. She shielded her eyes and fought to stay on her feet as a colossal roar battered her ears. The major stooped over her, his sword swinging back. Then he was gone, swept aside by a barrage of crashing boulders.

When the earthquake stilled, Josey coughed and waved her hands to clear the air before her eyes. There was no sight of the major beneath the landslide of stone and gravel. A vast hole gaped in the far cavern wall. Hirsch stood on the other side, lowering his hands as he leaned on Captain Drathan. The two of them looked like hell, but she’d never been happier to see anyone.

Then Josey remembered Hubert. Peering through the pall, she lurched across the rubble-strewn floor.

Caim’s knees slammed into the floor as he and the shadow warrior landed in another corridor inside the ducal palace. He rolled away and put his back to the wall. Quick glances in both directions indicated he was alone.

The shadow warrior was dead.

Caim scooted over and lifted the helmet’s visor. In the long, narrow features underneath he could see a vague resemblance to the witch. And to his mother. But the dusky skin paled before his eyes, becoming thin like old paper. Shadows flitted in the hollows of the warrior’s eyes, deepening as his body melted away, the armor crumbling into flakes, until only a patch of greasy ash remained. Caim got up. A handful of shadows wriggled up his arms, their touch cooling the burning cuts.

The corridor arrived at another intersection. To either side were smaller hallways, but Caim ignored them for the set of wide double doors in front of him. Heavy oak with hinges set into the frame. If they were barred, it would take a team of men with a battering ram to break through. Caim didn’t have a team anymore, and he was short on siege weapons. But he had something else.

The sword pulsed as he pointed it at the portals. Before he could form the command, the shadows poured down his arms and along the length of the blade, and flew at the doors. They washed across the wooden panels in a great black wave. Holes appeared in the wood; brass handles and hinges fell to the floor with heavy bangs.

The black sword nearly yanked Caim off his feet. He dug in his heels, and the blade’s hum rose to a whine. All right. Just this once .

The pull lessened for a moment. Taking that for acquiescence, and wondering at his own sanity for trying to reason with the thing, Caim allowed himself to be led through the doors.

Eerie cold enveloped him as he stepped across the entryway. His breath misted in the frigid air. The walls of the octagonal great hall were buttressed with thick wooden pilasters at each corner, rising to a vaulted timber ceiling. In the center was a wooden throne. Caim assumed the man in fine regalia sitting in the chair was the duke-the late duke, for he was clearly dead. Dozens of bodies lay around the throne, male and female, all headless. Caim had seen many awful things in his lifetime, things that had made him doubt the inherent goodness of mankind, but the severed heads floating in lazy circuits around the throne turned his marrow to ice. Lord Arion lay at his dead father’s feet. What had brought the young lord to this end? Then Caim saw the cocoons hanging on the walls, more than a score of them, shaped like men wrapped in black shrouds. He spotted the tufts of Keegan’s unruly hair sprouting from a casing. Some of the men moved, a little, but many remained still. Caim took a step toward the nearest cocoon and halted as four dark shapes glided from the shadows of the room. A voice whispered from the darkness.

“All these years, I thought you were dead.”

Caim braced himself as the witch walked out from behind the throne, radiating power like a miniature black sun. She strode over to the nearest cocoon and paused a moment to touch it. Muffled cries issued from the bubble of shadows. The man within the grim prison struggled for a moment, and then hung still. Her fingertips came away reddened with blood, which she put to her lips as she smiled at Caim.

He tried to take another step into the chamber but found he could not move as the cold infiltrated his body. His limbs were locked in place, his lungs frozen in midbreath. Everywhere the chill spread, sensation vanished. He didn’t want to know what would happen when it reached his heart. Caim strained with every muscle, but the paralysis held firm. And the shadow warriors circled nearer.

The witch gave him a smile that bordered on seductive. “And when Levictus reported your presence in the south, I hoped he would kill you and save me the trouble.”

A soft glow sparkled beside him.

“Caim,” Kit whispered, almost too soft to hear. “It took me forever to get through all the energy laced around this place.”

He wanted to tell her to get away before it was too late, but he couldn’t talk. He widened his eyes as far as he could and darted them back and forth between her and the witch, but Kit just hovered in place. Think of something, Kit. Distract her-anything!

Kit flew up next to him and ran her hands across his chest, like she was swatting at cobwebs, but nothing happened. There was a flicker of shadow, and then the witch was standing before him. Her eyes were so black he could not tell where the pupil ended and the iris began. They seemed to yawn wider as she placed a finger on his chest. A stabbing pain cut through the layers of his clothing to penetrate his skin.

“I warned Soloroth about you, but he was always too headstrong to heed me. Sickening, how he allowed himself to be conquered by an untrained half-breed like you.”