Shadow Magic (3 page)

Just a crown? A crown don’t buy you a skinny pig.

But the slave master didn’t complain. “Unchain the minstrel,” he muttered.

The guard blinked, confused.

“Do it!”

Thorn couldn’t believe it. He was free. Just like that.

Or was he?

No one paid ten sovereigns without wanting
something
in return.

“Think you’ve got off lightly, don’t you?” said the slave master as he undid Thorn’s manacles. “You have no idea.”

“I know you ain’t putting me down the mines.”

“There are worse places than the mines.”

Thorn rubbed his now free wrists. They hurt, but it was a good hurt. “No, there ain’t.”

“Do you know who Tyburn is?”

“Never heard of him till now.” Thorn grinned. “But I saw how you wet yourself when he looked at you.”

“You really are as green as grass. Tyburn’s an executioner.”

“Executioner?”

“Every Great House has one. It’s the executioner’s job to eliminate any threat to the ruling family. Sometimes that’s done by heading up an army, but that’s not Tyburn’s style. He’ll put a drop of poison in your cup or a knife in your back. He’s a man without honor.”

“That’s almost funny—a slaver talking about honor like he knows what it means.” Still, that wasn’t exactly good news. Thorn looked over at Tyburn. “Why does he want me? Who does he serve?”

Lukas smiled, and it wasn’t pleasant. “Look at him. What color does he wear?”

Tyburn’s clothing was old, comfortable, and muddy, but from his boots to his tunic to his gloves it was all just one color.

Black.

The slave master was right. There
were
worse places than the mines.

Tyburn served House Shadow.

“S
it.” Tyburn pushed a plate across the table. “Eat.”

A whole roasted chicken, its skin crispy golden, sat in a gravy sea surrounded by islands of peas and turnips. The smells made Thorn’s mouth water and stomach growl.

“As good as new and lice-free,” said Lukas, rubbing Thorn’s now hairless head. “That coat is fur-lined. And those boots are as stout as any you could hope for. He could walk a thousand miles in those boots.” Lukas smacked his lips loudly. “Thirsty work, climbing that hill. Could do with something to wet my gullet before the long trek back down. What d’you say, Master Tyburn?”

“Get lost,” replied Tyburn.

Lukas hesitated, as if he couldn’t believe what he was hearing.

“You still here?” asked Tyburn, not even looking up from his own meal.

“Yeah, you heard him,” added Thorn. “So just hurry up and get lost. Now.”

Lukas’s eyes darkened, then he left, slamming the door behind him.

Tyburn glanced at Thorn. “I said, sit. Eat.”

Thorn sat. The gravy was chocolate dark and thick, and the chicken’s skin was thinner than pastry flakes. The smell made him dizzy. He picked up his fork, trembling with excitement.

Then he put the fork down. “Why? Why all this food?”

“You’re not hungry?”

“You’re trying to fatten me up, ain’t you? Make me round and plump so you can feed me to your masters, the Shadows. Am I gonna be served with gravy, too?”

Tyburn frowned. “You think the Shadows eat boys like you?”

“Don’t they?”

“Of course not.” Tyburn tore off a strip of chicken. “The Shadows have delicate palates. You’d only give them food poisoning. Now eat.”

That wasn’t the answer he wanted, but hunger won over caution. Thorn grabbed a drumstick and bit into the juicy white meat. His taste buds, overwhelmed by the first decent food in months, burst with fire, and he gulped down a mug of watery mead. His tongue swam within the honey-flavored drink.

Thorn shoveled in peas and wedges of turnips, barely drawing breath between mouthfuls. As soon as he emptied his mug, it was refilled, and he guzzled that down, too. When he finished one plate, another landed, just as mountainous with hot food. Thorn attacked it like a wolf at winter’s end.

His belly ached, but that didn’t stop him. Gravy dripped from his fingers, and he licked them clean.
More
food arrived—a raspberry and apple pie with pastry thicker than his thumb and coated in custard. He broke the pie apart with his spoon, and his eyes followed the steam rising out of the cracks before he scooped a large bite into his mouth. The pie burned, but he didn’t care.

“Where’s Merrick?”

“Gone.”

Thorn gulped. “Gone? Where’s he…gone?”

Tyburn smirked. “You want to know if he’s gone or…
gone
? Do I have that right?”

“Yeah. Gone to get some bread, or gone to rest in the dirt for a real long time?”

“I haven’t killed him, if that’s what’s worrying you.”

Thorn shook his head as he kept downing peas. “Don’t you want him as your minstrel?”

“Have you heard the man sing?” asked Tyburn.

Thorn smiled. “Sounded like a bag of cats.”

“Then you know why I don’t want him as my minstrel.”

As he ate, Thorn cast sidelong glances at Tyburn, sizing up the man who had bought him.

Tyburn didn’t look like much. Stringy hair, a scarred face, and a cropped gray beard over a hard, bony jaw. He stood not much higher than Thorn—Thorn’s dad was taller—and had a wiry build. He was old, too—over forty. Where Thorn came from, that was graveyard old.

But there was a saying back home, one his grandpa used a lot:
There’s a bit of wolf even in a mongrel.

“Seen enough, boy?” asked Tyburn. “Or d’you want to stare some more?”

“I ain’t staring,” snapped Thorn. He lowered his gaze and went back to the serious task of stuffing his face.

He only stopped after his third helping. He groaned as he tried to give his belly room to stretch out.

The executioner’s own plate was empty, and he sat, pipe lit, watching.

“How old are you?” asked Tyburn.

“Twelve, Master.”

Tyburn pointed to the amulet around Thorn’s neck. “What’s that?”

Thorn slapped his hand over it. “It ain’t worth nothing.”

“It looks like a carpenter’s mark. Is it?”

Slowly, Thorn lowered his hand. Tyburn didn’t want it; he was just interested in it. “Yeah. My dad carved it for me. Me and the rest of our family.”

“Your father a carpenter, then?”

“Woodcutter. Does a bit of carpentry. Doors, wagons, and the like. He puts this acorn design on ’em so folks know who made it.”

That wasn’t Dad’s only trade, but Tyburn didn’t need to know about the
other
one.

“D’you earn enough just chopping down trees?”

“We got a few animals,” said Thorn. “Chickens and swine and such. We help the local farmers a bit. Picking apples, gathering hay. Clearing the ground for the plow. It ain’t hard work, and it puts bread in our bellies.”

“That all? Nothing on the side?”

“No,” lied Thorn.

“Show me your hands.”

Thorn laid open his palms. Tyburn held each, pressing his thumbs against the hard calluses. “So you’re used to axes—that’s obvious. And these. Archers have similar lumps.”

Thorn didn’t like these observations. They were too close to the truth. “And so does every person who uses a shovel.”

“What about a quill? You know your letters?”

“Never had no need. Trees don’t write and pigs don’t read.”

He wished he did, though. His sisters had learned to read and write, but Thorn hadn’t been interested, not when there were trees to climb and streams to fish in. Now? If he had his letters, he’d be able to write back home. And hear the news. News he
needed
to know.

Thorn pulled his hands back. “What do you want from me?”

“This and that.”

“That ain’t no answer.”

Tyburn dug his thumb into his pipe, raising a glow from the smoldering tobacco. “Do you know what an executioner does, boy?”

“Is this a trick question?”

“I deal with threats to House Shadow, the family I’ve sworn to protect. Some are easy to spot; others are hidden. So I ask questions and listen to answers. I listen
very
carefully. That’s how I know what’s a threat, and what’s not. You understand what I’m saying?”

“That you think I’m a threat?”

“That I know when I’m being lied to.” Tyburn stood up. “Get some sleep. We’ve a long journey ahead of us.”

They went northwest along the Cliff Road, above the crashing waves and below a sky dripping cold drizzle. Tyburn high up on his saddle, and Thorn tagging along on a donkey. The boy buried his chin deep into the fur of his coat. By his reckoning, it was late September. Back home, the heat of summer would still be lingering in the breeze. Here, farther north, the wind already carried the bite of winter. They traveled, one day into the next, in silence.

Thorn understood silence. He and his dad would sit in the forest, waiting, not saying anything from dawn till dusk.

But Tyburn’s silence was different. It weighed on Thorn, making him want to fill it. He kept his mouth firmly shut the first few days, but by the fourth, he needed to speak, just to hear a sound between them. So, as he and Tyburn were having breakfast at a roadside inn, Thorn spoke.

“Where are we going?” he asked.

“Home.”

“Home?” Thorn blurted. His heart jumped. “To Stour?”

“Stour? Is that where you come from?”

You fool. He’s not talking about
your
home; he’s talking about his.

“Yeah, Master,” said Thorn cautiously. “It’s a village in the Free Duchies. It ain’t big.”

But it had everything Thorn wanted. Trees with the reddest, juiciest apples in the world. A river to swim in during the summer and skate on when the snow fell. A pond he and his brothers would spend whole days at catching frogs, and his home: a small, two-room timber house with a straw-thatched roof built by his dad when he’d married his mom.

“Near Herne’s Forest, isn’t it?”

Why was Tyburn so interested? “I suppose.”

“Best you forget it,” said Tyburn. “You’ve a new home now. Castle Gloom.”

“Is it far?”

“We take the old road into Raven’s Wood. After a fortnight or so, we’ll cross the River Styx, and we’re in Gehenna.”

Gehenna. A country of misty forests and craggy mountains, where the sun never shone and the dead walked.

Why couldn’t he have been rescued by one of the Solars? Now
that
was a great Great House. Ancient enemies to the Shadows, their knights were the noblest of all men. The ruler, Duke Solar, had twelve daughters and each was the most beautiful woman in all of the world. That didn’t make a lot of sense, but Merrick, who said he’d met them, swore it was true.

Thorn could never become a knight, but he’d make a good squire. He’d look after the horses, clean the armor, and tend the weapons. He’d cheer his knight at jousts and tournaments, and he’d serve at feasts and see these beautiful daughters for himself.

That would be a good life.

But what was he doing instead? Heading off to a land of tombs and graveyards, where he’d probably be sent to work in the kitchens, chopping up corpses for the oven.

“What’s Lord Shadow like?” asked Thorn. Merrick hadn’t said much about Gehenna’s ruler.

“Dead.” Tyburn’s eyes narrowed. “He was killed five months ago. Gehenna is ruled by his daughter now. Lilith Shadow.”

“Lilith? What sort of name is that?”

“It means
Mother of Monsters
.”

Thorn gulped. He could picture her. A hideous troll with a long warty nose, green skin, and iron teeth. Probably ate children for supper.

Tyburn dropped a few pennies onto the table. “Let’s get going.”

Into Raven’s Wood. Sounded big.

Thorn smiled. He liked woods, and the bigger the better.

Tyburn was half-right. Stour wasn’t just
near
Herne’s Forest; it was connected to it, a part of the world’s oldest, largest forest.

Almost from the day he was born, Thorn had accompanied his dad into the woods, and he had learned more than just how to cut down trees.
Much
more.

Castle Gloom his new home? Never.

Stour was home. And he’d been gone long enough.

It’s time I went back, and no executioner’s gonna stop me.