Shadowrealm (2 page)

Lightning lit the night. Thunder rumbled, lingered, the sky with bloodlung.

They came to a tent near the center of the camp. The soft glow of a lantern leaked intermittently from the wind-whipped tent flap. Regg lifted it for them and they entered.

"I will find your father," Regg said. "It is good to have you back."

Abelar thumped him on the shoulder as he entered the tent.

Elden slept in one corner of the sparsely furnished space, his head poking from a pile of furs and woolens. A red-haired woman in chain mail sat on a small chair near the makeshift bed. She stood when they entered, mail chinking, her face alight.

"Abelar," she said with a smile.

"This is Jiiris," Abelar said, as she crossed the tent. "One of my company. Jiiris, know Erevis Cale and Drasek Riven."

Her gaze move only reluctantly from Abelar. She nodded a greeting to Cale and Riven. Her eyes took them in, the shadows that shrouded Cale, the ghost of a sneer that hung on Riven's face. She had stubborn eyes, a soldier's eyes.

"Thank you for what you did for Elden," she said. "It was noble work."

Her self-assuredness reminded Cale of Brilla, the kitchen mistress of Stormweather Towers. He suspected she would brook no foolery and liked her instantly.

Cale tilted his head in acknowledgment, while Riven sounded almost embarrassed.

"Not sure I've ever heard something I've done spoken of in such a way."

"Perhaps you should do such things more often, then," she chided. To Abelar, she said, "I am pleased to see you returned."

"And I am pleased to return to you, and my son."

She flushed at his words and Cale saw the stubbornness in her eyes give way to affection. She masked it again, and gestured at Elden. "He has awakened twice asking for you. He would like for you to awaken him, I'm sure."

Abelar nodded, though his face fell and colored. He brushed past her, sat on the bed with his back to them. For a time he simply looked upon Elden. He started to touch him twice, recoiled, finally brushed the boy's brow. Elden murmured in his sleep.

For a time no one spoke. The moment was too pure for the pollution of words. Thunder rumbled, rain pattered on the tent, and Elden's hands emerged from the blankets to cradle his father's hand, the hand that had killed Malkur Forrin.

Jiiris daubed her eyes.

In handcant, Riven signaled to Cale, See.

Not a question, but a demand.

Cale did not understand.

Father and son held each other in the bubble of the tent, each the satisfaction of the other's need. After a time, Abelar's body shook and it took Cale a moment to understand that he was sobbing. His tears were a confession.

Jiiris looked to Cale, a question in her own tear-streaked face.

Cale did not answer. He did not want to tell her that they had saved the son but lost the father. She would learn that soon enough. Instead, he whispered, "We must go. Help him as you can. We are his friends. Tell him so."

She nodded, pushed through the shadows to touch Cale's hand in gratitude.

Cale and Riven exited the tent, entered the night, the rain. Cale grabbed Riven by the arm, angry for no reason.

"What did you mean in there? When you signed 'see'?"

Riven faced him, eyed Cale's hold on his arm. "I wanted you to see what was happening. Understand it."

Cale released the assassin's arm. "I understood it."

"Did you?" the rain pressed Riven's hair to his skull. "We saved that boy, Cale, but you've been wearing a look on your face like we didn't. Why?"

The shadows around Cale coiled, spun in wide ribbons.

"Don't deny it," Riven said. "I've been killing men for most of my life. So have you. Reading a man's face comes with the work. And I can read you as well as any."

Cale could not articulate his thoughts, the strange detachment he felt, even after saving Elden. He was not himself. Or he was himself and did not like what he was.

"I don't know," he said. "I'm not..."

He let the thought die, shook his head.

Riven stepped closer to him. The shadows wrapped them both.

"You lied to Abelar about turning around."

Cale had no answer. He had lied.

"There ain't no turning around, Cale. You know that."

Cale did know it, but he wanted there to be, and he knew that he would tell Abelar the same lie again. He looked into Riven's face and said, "Sometimes we need lies."

Riven stared at him, stepped back, his expression as fixed as that of a golem. Green lightning lined the eastern sky, cast Riven's face in alternating fields of light and shadow. Thunder boomed, once, twice, again, again. He and Riven both turned and the moment was lost.

The distant clouds, cast in streaks of vermillion, blackened the sky, turned it to a void. They stretched fully across the eastern horizon, not mere clouds but a wall of pitch, an absence of light.

Refugees emerged from their tents in ones and twos, looking east to the tenebrous sky, shielding themselves from the rain. Jiiris stepped from the tent behind them.

She looked east as lightning flashed and the refugees gasped. Thunder rolled anew.

"That is not a storm born of nature," she said.

Cale agreed, and the shadows around him swirled in answer to the churning sky.

Abelar emerged, too. He held Elden tightly against him and put his other arm around Jiiris. She leaned into him and Cale thought that some wall between them had fallen. Faith had been supplanted by something more earthly.

Cale thought of Varra, the last woman he had held in his arms. A similar wall had stood between them and he'd never been able to breach it. Faith, or fate, seemed to leave little room for ordinary needs.

"Wizardry out of Ordulin," Abelar said. "Battle will be on its heels."

"Look at it," Jiiris said. "All of eastern Sembia will be caught in it."

Jiiris was right, and the import of her words caused Cale to curse.

"What is it?" Riven asked.

Cale drew the darkness about him. "Varra."

Riven looked puzzled for a moment, then recognition lit his face. "Varra? The woman from Skullport?"

"Wait for me here," Cale said, and the shadows surrounding him deepened. He pictured in his mind the cottage where he and Varra had spent a year, the cottage in which he'd left het behind, the cottage that was or soon would be within the magical storm.

"Cale, we stay together," Riven said. "I will come with you. Cale!"

Cale hesitated for a moment, nodded, and extended the darkness to Riven.

Abelar stared at Cale, at the darkness, his expression thoughtful.

"Return if you can," Jiiris said. "We will need you here." Cale nodded as the shadows whisked them across Sembia.

Rain drizzled from the dark sky. The low rumble of thunder from the east promised a still heavier downpour. The smell of Saerb, reduced to damp ash, still hung in the air, or perhaps simply lingered in Reht's memory. The smell of Saerb's dead, thankfully, did not.

Reht pulled up the hood of his cloak and sloshed through the camp. A few stubborn bonfires tended by equally stubborn soldiers smoked and sizzled in the wet. Eyes watched him pass and he left murmured questions in his wake.

The men had already heard. Reht should have known. Stories went through camp faster than a plague of the trots, even in the dead of night.

He reached the center of the camp where a crowd of soldiers stood around Forrin's large tent. The pennons on the center pole snapped in the breeze. Lantern light poured out of the tent's open flap. Reht saw Enken and two others within. He pushed through the press, nearly slipping in the mud.

"They got the general, Reht," one of the men said as he passed.

"What are we doing about it?" said another.

Reht decided to take a moment to remind the men that they were and remained soldiers, whatever the fate of their general. He stopped, pulled back his hood, and stared into one face after another.

"What will be done about it is what your commanders order you to do. And that will be in due time. Meanwhile, if any man loitering here is supposed to be standing a post, I will personally string him by the balls for dereliction of duty. Saerbian forces are in the field and they could be mustering for a counterattack. Rain and darkness are not armor. Am I understood?"

A chorus of "Aye, sirs" and averted gazes answered his words.

Enken stood with Strend and Hess inside the tent. The rain beat staccato off the canvas. Enken nodded a greeting and

Strend and Hess saluted. Hess's moustache drooped as much as the man's shoulders. Strend, as barrel-chested as a dwarf, shifted uncomfortably on his feet.

At a glance, everything within the tent seemed in order. There was no blood, no items tossed about. It appeared as though General Forrin had simply stepped out to the privy.

"What exactly happened here?" Reht asked.

Hess and Strend hesitated, looked one to the other.

"Tell him what you told me," Enken said to Hess. "Neither of you is at fault here."

Hess eyed Reht and shook his head. "We heard a shout, Commander, and rushed in. We saw a man—"

"Wasn't a man," Strend said, shaking his head and crossing his arms over his chest.

"The Hells," Hess said. "It was a man, but not normal. He was dark, with shadows all around him. He saw us, the tent went dark, then he was gone with the general."

"Shadovar," Reht said. They had heard that forces out of Shade Enclave had allied with the Selgauntans and Saerbians.

Enken grunted agreement, pulled one of his many knives and ran his thumb across its edge. "My thoughts as well."

Strend looked nervous, eyed the dark pockets in the corners of the tent. "Shadovar.... I've heard things."

"Tales and naught else," Enken said, pointing his blade at the young soldier. "Shadovar bleed as well as any and better than some." He looked to Reht. "We could turn the clerics on to this Shadovar's scent. Follow him. They must have wanted the general alive or they would have killed him here."

"Agreed," Reht said.

Hess looked like he'd eaten bad beef. "He warned us not to follow."

Reht and Enken stared blades at the boy. "What? Who?"

"The Shadovar."

"And?"

"And... that is all," said Hess and looked away.

Enken grunted in disgust, took Hess by the back of his cloak, and shoved him toward the tent flap.

"You left your balls out in the rain, soldier. Get out there and find him 'ere I see you again."

Reht, Enken, and Strend chuckled at Hess's expense as Hess sulked his way out of the tent. The moment he stepped outside the questions from the loiterers flew as heavy as the rain.

"Lorgan has not reported back," Enken said. "That leaves the rank to you or me."

"Fight you for it?" Reht said.

Enken smiled, showing his chipped front teeth. He sheathed his knife. "I would, but we can't afford to lose you." Reht chuckled.

Enken said, "You're longer in the Blades, anyway, known the general and the men longer. You take it."

Reht considered that, and nodded. While he had always been a tactician, a leader of small units, not a strategist, he could assume command until the overmistress replaced Forrin with another general.

"When Lorgan shows, he'll rank me and can have it."

"If Lorgan shows," Enken said. "His silence bodes ill. Meantime, keep a light around you. Shadovar seem to have a liking for anyone leading this army."

Reht smiled but it was forced. To Strend, he said, "Take Hess and get me Mennick and Vors, and the rest of the Talassans. Let's find out what happened here."

Strend saluted and started to bound from the tent.

"Wait," Reht said, and Strend stopped.

"Sir?"

"Bring the Corrinthal boy back with you, too. If Vors has a problem, you bring him to me."

Strend nodded and hurried out, and they heard him call for Hess.

"Vors," Enken said, and spit as if the name itself left a foul taste.

Reht thought that said everything that needed saying. He walked the confines of Forrin's tent, trying on his new rank, looking over Forrin's personal effects. Forrin had traveled light, still a mercenary footman despite his rank.

"Blade and armor are gone," Reht said to Enken.

"I noticed."

"Could be the general put up a fight before Hess and Strend entered the tent."

"Could be. But if so, it wasn't much of one."

"Bold, taking him out of his own tent," Reht said.

Enken nodded, his expression thoughtful.

Reht didn't have an eye for clues or a head for mysteries. He'd leave it to Mennick and the priests. He turned his thoughts back to his men, his army, things he understood.

"Extra discipline with the men for a time, to keep things in order while they stomach the news. We'll need to get word to the overmistress."

"Agreed to both," Enken said. "If she replaces you with someone political, I think the Blades will take it ill."

Reht nodded, listened to the patter of rain, and pondered his course. A third of his forces under Lorgan had not reported back. Likely they had been delayed by the weather or cut off by Saerbian forces. He knew a sizeable force of Saerbians had mustered on the shores of Lake Veladon. He suspected Endren Corrinthal was among them.

Reht was inclined to meet them in the field. He knew that Forrin's orders had been to raze Saerb and disrupt any potential muster of Saerbian forces. They'd razed Saerb but at least a partial muster had gone forward anyway.

"I am tempted to move against the Saerbians at Lake Veladon."

"The commanders will support that," Enken said. "Gavist

and I had been advocating as much with Forrin before... this."

"Well enough. It'll give the men a focus. Call the commanders together."

Enken saluted, grinning through his beard the while, and stepped out of the tent.

"Reht has command until further notice!" Reht heard him shout to the gathered men outside. "Pass the word."

They would assemble the army with the dawn and formally announce Reht's promotion with all the assembled commanders at his side. He expected no resistance. He knew he was respected, even liked. He'd led many of the men in the atmy personally, fought beside them, bled beside them. They would follow him for as long as he had command.