SWNOVELS Fireblade: Chapter 15
THE NEXT LEVEL OF THE enemy-occupied palace is damp and grimy and clearly still underground, housing the main section of the dungeons. There are almost certainly a number of Kashia’s captured spies incarcerated here––but the bristling shadow of barely-repressed anger stalking at my side is a tangible reminder that I need to employ more diplomacy if the two of us are to succeed in this operation. Best to focus on teamwork until the job is done and we can get out of this place. I restrain myself from any further prisoner-release diversions. The tortured souls suffering within these walls will have to wait for their reprieve until the whole country is liberated.
The guttering dull red glow of occasional torches casts enough light-and-dark contrast for Shadow’s wings to find corners that conceal us from passing guard patrols, but I’m starting to notice the effect this hidden progress is having on him. As the binding grows stronger with contact and practice, I can more easily sense when his speed and power is dulled or distracted.
Because his weakness affects me at the same time.
In the same way that we seem to gain advantages from the connection between us, I’m now discovering the downside to this strange bond. A sudden weakness that is beyond my control is something I find profoundly unnerving. As soon as we reach the level above, I pause, hoping the dullness will ease.
It doesn’t.
I stare at him. “Shadow? What is your problem? We need to be on top form if we’re going to confront Nagal! And now you’re moving at snail’s pace compared to how you were in the underground tunnels.”
“Keep moving.” His ongoing resentment at what he sees as a lost opportunity with Nagal’s prisoner carves a sharp edge to his voice. “Weaving enough shadow to conceal both of us takes too much concentration for me to have time for arguing with you.”
Maybe I could have figured that out for myself if I hadn’t been so distracted by the mind-dulling effect of it. Another disturbing thought emerges from this.
“Does Nagal have the ability to detect us?”
I feel the stab of disquiet my question has on him.
“I do not know. He was waiting for us the last time we broke in here. I hoped it was because he expected me to enter by the open windows on the balcony. I should have known it would be too obvious an approach. Maybe coming from underground will blind him to our presence, as well as the deeper shadow I am trying to weave around us.” He casts an impatient glare in my direction. “When you are not trying to distract me, that is.”
Not exactly reassuring then.
I follow him through the maze of corridors and staircases. The patrols increase in number and frequency the closer we get to the upper suite of royal apartments the Emperor has taken for himself, and Shadow’s efforts to disguise our presence are taking an even heavier toll on him.
There are two guards outside the door.
My hand strays once more to my dagger, but only briefly. Even a few drops of blood left here after we kill them will raise alarms all over the palace. Better to rely on one of the paralysis-points I learned from the Nishan, made easier by approaching within the Blade’s concealing shadow.
I turn to him to convey my plan. At least our signed and whispered communication has become almost flawless, but right now it is telling me that his strength is almost spent with the effort of disguising our advance this far. Nishan tactics will not work here. Not this time.
I push him further back into the shadows of an over-decorated alcove, trying not to get distracted by the thought that royalty should maybe spend less time on appearances and more on security and good sightlines, even if this hiding place is currently to our advantage as murderous intruders.
“Can you get both of us to those two guards, unseen?”
He measures the distance visually, then leans back against the wall, his eyes closed.
“I need more from you.” He holds out a shaking hand. I don’t trust him to limit how much he takes, so I give him just the amount I sense he might need.
He picks up on my distrust and the fact I can now control my own barriers, but he doesn’t comment. He steps forward.
“Stay behind me.”
The last few paces to get in reach of the two guards are slow and painful, but we remain concealed. I take enough life-force from each man to render both of them unconscious for the next few hours and share what I have gained with Shadow. I prop the two inert bodies in a sitting position against the wall as if they are simply asleep at their posts. It might grant us an extra few minutes before the truth is discovered.
The door is locked from the inside. Seems the Usurper is seriously afraid of being attacked again. Shadow has recovered enough to lay pale fingers on the lock until it freezes, grows brittle, and cracks apart.
I push my way into the room and hear the door being closed behind me. Ashur Purmut is standing with his back to the wall on the far side, his heavy sword already in his hand and a lumpy mailshirt worn over the thick brocade of his robes.
If he had detected our approach in advance, this room would be packed with bodyguards but I see only four.
The telltale shadows under the Usurper’s eyes tell a story of permanent watchfulness as he has waited anxiously for our next assassination attempt. That means my previous failure may unwittingly have caused him to make some serious, stress-induced tactical mistakes. Maybe the schism with General Dragar is not the only one.
More immediately, I have to deal with the bodyguards before they can summon reinforcements from beyond the damaged door. Shadow blocks their retreat while I steal the life-force we so desperately need. This is so much more complicated than simply killing them with crysteel. It takes a few moments before I can gain enough to share while at the same time watching to ensure that Shadow is guarding my back.
That done, I turn to face the Emperor. He has drawn the heavy sword he used to defend himself last time and the scar on my arm stings at the memory of it. Steel is not the weapon I fear now, but his words.
Before I can close the gap between us, he speaks.
“I cannot believe you are still being duped by this trickster! So easily he has lured you, Samaran’s strongest fighter, away from Maratic, just as my army approaches to claim it for the Empire.” He sees my hesitation and a slow smile spreads across his heavy features as he moves clumsily into a semblance of a fighting stance.
This time, the compulsion in his voice is diminished by my Nishan training in languages. Listening to his flawless Samarian, I find I can focus on simultaneously translating it into Annubian or Rapathian. It takes the edge off the sinister, hypnotic effect his taunts had on me before––but he still knows how to play into my underlying distrust of my partner in arms.
I glance over my shoulder, hoping to pick up on Shadow’s reaction, to find that he is already fully engaged with fighting Nagal. That is a warning in itself. I did not even notice the corrupt Elemental’s approach from whichever murky corner he had been hiding in. I notice instantly that they are both holding back from killing each other with weapons and are using their blades only as foils.
What is Shadow trying to achieve here? There is something he hasn’t been telling me. As usual.
I should have guessed he would try to trick me again. My choices of action are now severely limited to little more than survival for both of us. I try to keep focus on the Emperor, dancing out of the way of his clumsy sword strokes, aware that his words will gain more power every time my distrust of the Blade’s motives grows stronger. If only I could filter sounds better, blocking his corrosive words while listening for approaching threats.
I try logical arguments without much hope of success.
“Reaching Maratic will do you no good. I killed your adept when we came through the dungeons.”
The twitch of surprise tells me the Blade’s shielding had indeed concealed our route in here, albeit at the cost of draining strength from us both. But I can tell the Usurper’s anger is not intense enough to be caused by losing his ultimate goal of Maratic. All he has lost is a piece of replaceable property. I anticipate his answer almost before he speaks.
“It makes no difference. That thing you destroyed was merely the backup for the real prize, presently being carried to Maratic by my army. Your duplicitous friend is playing with you.”
“You think I would believe that the Shadowblade would help you? Give away his place of power to his old enemy?”
His triumphant sneer is horribly convincing.
“You underestimate my skill at striking a deal. When I have taken what I need from Maratic, he can have it. Once I have created my army of adepts I will move on to new conquests. This pathetic country of yours is almost stripped bare already. All that stood in my way was you, and your treacherous ally has given me the chance I needed to get you out of the way. Nothing can stop me now.”
It seems to fit only too well with what I already know about Shadowblade tactics. I’m finding it increasingly difficult to focus on anything but the treachery of an ally I already did not fully trust. We are not here with the same aims and goals after all.
Still, I haven’t forgotten that Shadow is not the only one who is playing tricks here. I am betraying my promise that I would kill the Emperor, trying instead to follow Marin’s instructions to merely distract or disable him. Which is not easy. All I can do is to keep that damned hulking sword away from me, circling and dodging to maintain a position where I can simply stay alive until Shadow finally manages to kill Nagal.
Priority is to keep watch on what is happening on the other side of the room. It looks increasingly like a mix of a vicious ice-storm and a cat-fight, a hissing, snarling vortex of hatred as each of them tries to steal life-force from the other. I hesitate for a moment, wondering how I can sense this––and why Shadow is even attempting it. Wasn’t this the very ability he lost when…
And finally, I understand why he needed me here with him, working in such close harmony that each of us can feel every ebb and flow of the other as we simultaneously kill the enemy pairing. It is the only thing that gives him a single narrow window of opportunity to steal Nagal’s power.
So that is what this is really all about, not simply killing an old enemy. He has been planning this reaping all along––his one chance to grab a vast amount of additional power for himself!
He manages to separate from the fray for a brief moment to hiss another of his commands at me.
“Kill the Usurper!”
That was a mistake.
The fraction of inattention is enough to give Nagal the opening he needs as his pale fingers close on Shadow’s throat.
The sickening, clawing grasp of Nagal’s reaping feels as deadly as if he were attacking me directly. I cannot believe I am only feeling this through the binding with his actual victim. I sink to my knees as a wave of weakness and dizziness runs through me.
The gleam of victory in the Usurper’s eyes is infuriating as he gloats over the ease with which he can now kill me. I watch the great sword raise slowly above his head, even as I notice that he is so unfit he barely has the strength to lift its weight. It starts to speed its passage as it descends.
At the last fraction of a second I roll sideways and draw my blade across the back of his knees, watching in slow motion as the tendons sever and his legs collapse in a spray of blood. I lurch to my feet and stagger across the room to where the two adversaries are still locked in their deadly struggle. I know I don’t have the ability to kill Nagal. All I can do is give Shadow some of my strength. Even though he doesn’t deserve it after everything he has done, every trick he has played.
But right now Nagal is the greater threat to my country and my people. I lay my hand on Shadow’s neck and push. As the darkness closes in around me I can dimly see him reassert himself and I feel some of his strength returning as he steals it back from Nagal.
Then I see the flash of a hidden knife, just before everything goes black.
THE SOFT MIST OF EARLY morning wakes me with a sheen of dew on my face. I feel very surprised to be alive. Shadow is standing over me. He looks even more angry than when we were hiding in musty corners of the palace corridors.
“Why did you refuse to kill that useless slug of an Emperor? That would have weakened Nagal so that I could easily hold him down for reaping! You ruined everything, forcing me to stab him before it was complete.”
“Maybe you should have been honest about what you planned to do. You told me you only wanted to kill him.”
“The reaping would have killed him. It just happens to be slower and more difficult than your crude human method of using a blade. Too late now. He is dead and I have gained too little of what he had.”
“You must have gained something or we would both be lying dead on the palace floor.”
“Not as much as I need for what I have to do next. You can cease complaining that I withheld the full story of my plans. You deceived me about your own motives for this operation. What was your reason for keeping Purmut alive?”
“The feud between him and General Dragar weakens the Rapathian army. That is to your advantage also.”
I watch him consider this as I sit in silence for a few moments to cautiously explore whatever it was he took from Nagal. And shared with me.
It feels… unpleasant. I would dearly like to purge the cloying, heavy threads of it running through every vein in my body. I catch its signature, the stink of rot and decay like the aftermath of the battle on the Rapathian border, mixed with the slow decomposition that works its way through the murky depths of the flat swampland beyond.
Failure to steal all of Nagal’s power may have been an unwitting consequence of my distrust, but I’m fervently glad that Shadow didn’t have the chance to capture any more of it.
Ugh. I need something to take my mind off it.
I look around, trying to work out where we are. Trees and grass. A glimpse of the city walls beyond.
“How did you get us out of the castle?”
He glares at me. “I broke the lock on the door to the balcony and brought us here while I consider what to do next. I almost left you in there after what you did. Or rather, what you deliberately failed to do.”
“I’m sure you would have preferred that option.” Then I recall the sickening weakness that ran through me when Nagal almost killed him… and I suddenly understand that the same effect would happen in reverse.
“But you couldn’t risk that, could you, Shadow? The guards would have killed me and that is a threat to your own life.”
I watch him carefully and spot the subtle twitch of annoyance he tries to hide. Seems I guessed right. A weakness, a vulnerability he was hoping to keep from me. Maybe I can discover a little more.
“How did you plan to claim the bargain you made with the Usurper if I had killed him like you wanted me to?”
He looks surprised I should even ask.
“He lied. Have you not learned by now what he is like? There is no bargain. There never was. I know better than to trust the word of a liar.”
“Spoken like a true purveyor of clarity and truth.”
I remind myself that he doesn’t seem to understand sarcasm and make myself concentrate on more immediate problems.
“Where now?”
“We must return immediately.” He gathers me inside his wings, but not before I catch the edge of yet another deception. Maybe I’m finally learning how to identify them now, hidden within fragments of truth spoken without their full context.
Return where?