City of Scars (The Skullborn Trilogy, Book 1) (10 page)

Kol moved his tongue across sharpened teeth and offered prayer to the Mother.  He hungered for the coming feast.

Nine

Temple Street was well-lit, and there were a good number of people about in spite of the rain.  It seemed a strange place for Bordrec to want to meet, but Ijanna assumed he had his reasons. 

A long-haired beggar with crooked teeth and a scraggly beard sat at the mouth of the alley between Harper and Cane Streets, just as the note had promised.  He was dressed in tattered rags and didn’t say a word, but he held his filthy hand open expectantly as she approached.  Ijanna handed him a coin.  He looked her up and down and smiled, then offered her his seat before he sauntered down the alley and out of sight, hopefully to fetch Kleiderhorn.

Either that or I’ve just purchased a lovely wooden crate.

Ijanna huddled against the alley wall, pulled her cloak tight and looked out into the pounding rain.  Thunder peeled so loud it rattled her bones. 

Temple Street was amply named.  Ijanna saw at least a dozen houses of worship on either side of the road, all devoted to the Jlantrian’s One Goddess, Corvinia.  Why they needed so many different churches was something Ijanna had never understood.  The temples seemed busy in spite of the foul weather, and the bright yellow windows were filled with the silhouettes of the people inside.  Smoking braziers tended by white-clad priests stood just inside the open doorways of several of the buildings.

Ijanna looked down the alley behind her and saw nothing but wet shadows and piles of garbage and waste.  Rainwater ran down the walls and collected in murky pools.  She’d sense if anyone tried to sneak up on her, so she tried her best to relax.  It wasn’t easy.  Anxiety boiled in her gut. 

It doesn’t matter what you do.  You’re not getting out of this. 
She tried to push the discouraging thought aside, but it was no use.  She was stuck, and that fact twisted like a blade in the chest. 
Let it go
, she told herself. 
Accept the fact you have nothing more to lose. 
It was easy to say, and hard to do.

The rain showed no signs of letting up.  Several people joined services at the churches, and many more just walked by, off to some normal place where they’d do normal things.  Temple Street was probably the safest road in the city, as the new White Dragon Guard would be careful to protect the lives of the faithful. 

A group of churchgoers emerged from the temple across the street.  They talked quietly amongst themselves and donned woolen cloaks to keep the weather at bay.  Ijanna regarded them as she might a strange animal – interesting, peaceful, and beyond her understanding.  Her life had been spent training to use the Veil, to fight, to stay hidden.  She knew little else. 

Part of her always looked at those people – those strange, Goddess-fearing people – with envy.  Even if they had nothing in common, at least they had each other.  They had their normalcy, their banality, and she was fiercely jealous.

Lucky you
, she wanted to tell them. 
You don’t even know how much you have.  How much you take for granted.

Ijanna watched those people and tried to imagine herself among them.  She pulled up her hood, and waited. 

“You’re insane,” Bordrec said.  “And if
you’re
not crazy, then
I
am, for even considering the notion of helping you.”

Bordrec Kleiderhorn was a Drage, so he barely came up to Ijanna’s chest even though he was as broad of shoulder as she was.  His dark skin was covered with serpent tattoos which told the history of his family line in the pattern of their scales.  His eyes were pale green, the same color as his cloak and hood, and his lanky grey hair hung down over his bearded face.

A pair of large men in dark cloaks flanked Bordrec.  They looked absolutely miserable in the downpour, but they stood as still as stones, their thick arms folded across their chests.  Bordrec never went anywhere without his bodyguards, and with good reason: he was one of the most prosperous freelance smugglers and black market traders in Ebonmark.  Bordrec had plenty of enemies – neither the Black Guild nor the Phage tolerated entrepreneurial businessmen like Kleiderhorn unless they took in some of his profits, a situation Bordrec had carefully avoided for several years now.

“So you’re going to help me?”  Ijanna asked.

“I don’t think I should,” he said.  Bordrec made up for his lack of stature with a great deal of volume and rage, but Ijanna wasn’t afraid of him – he was honor-bound to aid and protect her by a blood debt owed to her father, a debt she frequently reminded him of.

“Of
course
you should,” she said. 

Bordrec laughed.  Ijanna folded her arms and gave him a scowl.

“You’ve been enough trouble, I think,” he said smugly.  “Now the Chul are looking for you, just like the Phage are, and I’ve heard the Black Guild hired a former Dawn Knight to hunt you down.  That means he’ll be after
me
, and that’s very irritating.”  Bordrec scowled.  “I’m a busy man – I don’t have time to be irritated.”

“Bordrec,” Ijanna said.  “I appreciate all of your help.  I wouldn’t have made it this far without you.”

“I know,” he said with a sneer.

“But this is something I
have
to do,” she said.  “I’m breaking into Colonel Blackhall’s tower, with or without your help.  I’ll do it alone if I must.”

A beat of thunder shook the sky.  Small rivers of rainwater sliced down the darkened alley.  Ijanna shivered from the cold. 

“Don’t think you can guilt me into helping you,” Bordrec said with the same tone one might use with a disobedient child.  “Your father was an idiot. 
You’re
an idiot.  And I’m not going to endanger myself again for a family of idiots.”

“So the answer is ‘No’?”

“Are you still going to Chul Gaerog?” he asked.

Ijanna’s stomach tightened.  She hated to even hear the name of that place.  The Black Tower.  The Blood Queen’s fortress.

The place where it all began, and the place where it will all end.

“Yes,” she said.  “Once I’m finished here in Ebonmark.  And I’ll need your help to do that, too.”

“Absolutely!”  Bordrec said with mock enthusiasm.  “Is there anything
else
I can do for you?!”

“Are you helping me or not?”  Ijanna said.

Bordrec’s eyes shot daggers through her, but Ijanna knew she had him.

“What do you need?” he snapped.  “And how soon do you plan to do this fool thing so you can earn the ire of a Jlantrian Colonel?”

“Tonight,” she said.

Another peal of thunder drowned out the sound of Kleiderhorn’s curses.

Ten

Dane had gained little ground even after he’d spent the entire day combing Ebonmark’s underworld.  He had to learn absolutely everything he could about Bordrec Kleiderhorn, a local crime lord who’d garnered a notorious reputation trafficking narcotics and black market arcana.  Dane was impressed, not so much by Kleiderhorn’s criminal enterprises – the Drage was just a small-time smuggler with delusions of being much more – but by how difficult he was to find.

Ebonmark’s network of criminal informers proved to be incredibly tight-lipped, not surprising considering the vicious crime war that was going on.  The Iron Count hadn’t exaggerated when he’d said the rivalry between the Black Guild and the Phage had turned relentlessly bloody, and over the past few weeks the body count had mounted.  The Guild’s enemies were found mangled and mutilated and often difficult to identify; victims of the Phage’s wrath fared even worse, if they were found at all.  And if an enterprising criminal in Ebonmark was anything more than a cutpurse he had little choice but to pay allegiance to one of the crime cartels.  If he didn’t, he’d best pray to the One Goddess nobody found him.  Kleiderhorn, it seemed, prayed a
lot
.

Dane spent much of the day re-acquainting himself with Ebonmark’s urban geography, which had remained unchanged since his last visit to the city some years ago.  Though it certainly wasn’t the grandest place, Ebonmark had a charm all its own, a shadowy ambiguity and dichotomous energy which left a traveler wary, awestruck, comfortable and confused all at once.  The city had been built at the nexus of the three Empires in an almost forgotten time when Jlantria, Den’nar and Gallador had been on amiable enough terms to openly trade with one another.  Ebonmark rested at the fork where the River Grey met the River Black, and its west and south sides were lined with docks, fisheries and logging houses. 

Dane surveyed the area from an elevated road circumventing the city.  The western mercantile district was occupied by abandoned customs offices and boats which had once ferried travelers for a nominal fee; now the ships were fully armed longboats manned by White Dragon regulars, and the waters were fortified with sharp stakes, watchtowers and siege weapons positioned to discourage vessels approaching from the ruins of Gallador.  Bivouacs were spread around Ebonmark’s northern walls to intercept would-be travelers, and barracks, stables and crude tents covered the area like blemishes. 

Though it had once been the center of Ebonmark’s fishing and logging industry the southern docks were now termite-infested and littered with waste.  Light rain peppered the sluggish waters, and the sickly sky was vibrant with the promise of more storms.  The greasy air smelled of salt, fish and smoke.

Ebonmark stood on a steep hill about three hundred feet above the river.  The logging camps south of the city had been destroyed by Tuscar raiders, and on occasion the marauders even attacked the city itself.  Vast plains of cracked earth and dead grass surrounded Ebonmark.  The war against Gallador and the Blood Queen had destroyed most of the vegetation in the region, and the presence of the Tuscars and continued warring between the city-states had made the area as fertile as a stone.  Had there been enough cooperation among the city-states to establish an organized force the Tuscars would have been run out and efforts could have been made to revitalize the area, but that hadn’t happened yet, and Dane doubted it ever would.  Everyone was too busy looking out for themselves. 

Dane looked past the walls and saw the Black Hills to the southeast, a massive expanse of steep bluffs and craggy canyons.  The shadowy peaks of the Razortooth Mountains stood to the west, and on the southwest horizon the mighty Ravenwood was sprawled across the landscape.  The monstrous mountain range called the Grim Titans was visible to the northwest despite the great distance, and the lands to the north were barren, jagged and lifeless.  Gallador had been a desert even before it had been corrupted by Vossian war machines, and now it was just a stark sea of red sand filled with valleys, devastated settlements and thousands of bones, earning the region its new name: the Bonelands.  

Storm clouds danced with diaphanous grace up and down the plains.  The purple sky seemed to breathe.  Even through the scattered storms Dane’s keen eyes caught sight of a wagon caravan in the distance, probably due east for the stormy coasts of the Moon Sea.

Dane drew his hood and balled his gloved fists to fight the chill.  He turned back to the city.  His stomach twisted with hunger, and he’d wasted enough time. 

Ebonmark was a dark place.  Sunlight never filtered down between the tightly clustered buildings, leaving the twisted streets thick with shadows.  Dirt-packed roads made travel through town difficult and slow when it rained, which was often.  Dane sloshed through the mud, his cloak pulled tight to shield his body against the cold fingers of the evening mist. 

At a glance Ebonmark’s buildings weren’t as dilapidated as the docks or as battered as the city walls, but the closer Dane looked the more he saw the city’s disintegrating face.  Ebonmark hadn’t received proper structural attention in years.  Doors that looked solid and stable from afar were revealed to be cracked and weathered up close, and windows which sparkled in the dim lamplight were fractured and brittle with age. 

Dane walked down Tower Street, which was lined with old shops and dozens of homes.  Half of the businesses looked like they’d been shut down for some time.  There were plenty of people about, their hoods drawn and their heads lowered.  Ebonmark was clearly overpopulated – there were too many silhouettes in the windows, too many sheets of laundry dangling from frayed clotheslines, too many voices struggling to be heard over the din.  Even at the darkest hours of the night the city was alive with motion.

And yet Dane didn’t sense the aura of despair and desperation he was used to in other places. He passed through the heart of the city – not the physical nexus, where the crime and filth dwelled, but the true heart, those places where Ebonmark lived and breathed, the parts that reminded him of home.  A pair of women walked out of a candlemaker’s shop with their arms full and smiles on their faces.  A group of young men walked into a noisy tavern called the Pig’s Snout, jeering and slapping each other on the backs as they entered, their worries forgotten.  A baby cried from an upper story room, her voice lost in the patter of falling rain.  Tobacco and chimney smoke filled the grey air.  Cats scurried by, eager to escape the weather. 

Dane’s boots stamped on rain-slicked stones between stretches of dirt and mud.  The shadows of passers-by reflected in tall shop windows and puddles on the ground.  The air tasted of ozone from the storm overhead and vegetables from the street vendors. 

He passed a bread shop, and stopped to peer inside.  A long-haired old man stooped low and teased a pair of young boys with glazed pastries while their mother stood smiling behind them.  Fresh loaves lined the narrow shelves, and even with the glass and the musky smell of the rain Dane’s nostrils swelled with the tantalizing aroma of freshly baked bread.