Shadow's Son (31 page)

"Different how?"

"Well, it wasn't so much what he said, or didn't, as how he acted. He
spent most of his time alone. He had no interest in playing children's
games anymore. In fact, he wanted nothing to do with me at all unless it
had to do with weapon play. I tried to put him off, but I could see early
on that he wouldn't be long for this little cottage. So I figured I'd best
make sure he knew how to take care of himself."

"So you're the one who taught him how to fight."

Kas shook his head. "I can't take much credit for that. Oh, I taught him
how to handle a blade without sticking himself, but not much more than
the basics. You see, soldiering is all I know, but Caim wasn't satisfied with
the simple drills I could teach him. He always pushed himself harder. No,
he learned more in those woods, stalking the forest creatures and whatnot,
than from me. I'll never forget the day he came home with a fine young
buck slung over his shoulder. The thing weighed damned near as much as
he did. He didn't have no bow or arrows neither. Not even a spear."

"How did he kill it, then?"

Kas chewed on a piece of ham for a moment. "When I asked him that,
he took out the hunting knife I'd given him and laid it on the table just
as bold as brass. I nearly cuffed him for lying, but I could see it in his
eyes."

"He wasn't lying."

"Nope. Near as I can tell, he ain't never lied to me."

Josey let that tumble around in her head as she thought about how to
phrase her next question. She couldn't let go of the things she had seen in
the cellar of her father's house. Caim had done something, or become
something. She wasn't sure which, but it wasn't natural.

"Kas, did Caim ever do anything ... strange?"

The big man put another hunk of piglet in his mouth and nodded.
"All the time. You've seen it. He's a strange bird, but loyal to the bone. Was always like that. He'd wrangle like a snake to get out of a chore he
didn't like, but if he gave you his word, he was as true as steel."

"No, I mean did you ever see him do anything odd? Something you
couldn't explain."

Kas met her gaze, his sea blue eyes twinkling in the candlelight. "You
mean his powers."

Josey understood what he meant by the way he said it. She nodded.

Kas sat back in his chair and reached for his cup. After a long drink,
he sighed. "Aye, I've seen it. It started not long after his father was killed.
Caim went from a bright, happy lad to moody as the Sea of Torments in
winter. But that wasn't all. He started doing things-things I couldn't
explain. He always had light feet, but I swear he could pop out on you in
an empty room. And trying to find him when he didn't want to be found?
Forget it. He was like a ghost."

"Yes, what is it?" She hesitated, but then plunged headlong into her
next thought. "Is he a ... I don't know what you'd call it. A magician? A
warlock?"

Kas shook his shaggy head. "Nay, lady. I've known that boy all his life.
I watched him grow up from a tiny babe, and I tell you on my life he didn't
never go for that sort of mummery. No, it's all on account of his mother's
blood. I'd heard the rumors. Every man who served under Calm's father had
at one point or another. They said she'd come from the Other Side."

"The Other Side?" The phrase pricked at something in her memorysomething she hadn't thought about in a very long time, a tale she'd been
told as a child on stormy nights when her nursemaid would bundle her
up in blankets and tell her scary stories. "Do you mean the fey lands? Like
elf mounds and unicorns?"

He shrugged his broad shoulders. "It's a northern legend. Way up
beyond the marches and the wastes is said to be another world, a place of
eternal twilight. The Other Side we called it. Most folk pass it off as
drivel, but you've seen Caim. His father was a young knight when he
returned from beyond the marches with a new bride, and their child. The
woman was a rare beauty, with skin like mormorion crystal polished to a
high luster, and the deepest, darkest eyes you've ever seen. It didn't take
long for the stories to start around, but rumors are like mice. Try to stomp
them out, but there's always a few scurrying under the floorboards."

"What about you? Did you believe the stories?"

"I believed Calm's father was a decent man and an honest lord, which
is as rare a thing as an honest wage these days, and a good friend. As for
the rest, it wasn't none of my concern."

"Does Caim know?"

"Hard to say. He was too young to understand such things when his
parents were alive. Later on, I tried to spare him as much pain as I could,
little as it was."

As she listened, Josey felt something stir in her chest. Emotions
swirled beneath her calm surface, and she realized she had been holding
Caim at a distance all this time. He had risked his life for her, and never
deceived her or tried to take advantage. Take away the fact of his profession and he was the finest man she'd ever known.

She took a sip of wine.

"Another snot?" Kas held up the wine bottle.

Josey was extending her cup when a noise creaked outside, like bony
fingers scraping against the side of the cabin. She jumped in her seat. The
crickets had fallen silent.

Kas clucked. "Don't fret. It's just the trees blowing. Nothing to
worry-

The door shivered in its frame as a heavy thud crashed against the
oaken panels. Kas leapt out of his chair. Another blow flexed the stout
planks. A splintered chunk of wood fell from the door. Josey clutched the
table as a scream climbed up her throat.

Through the hole, Markus grinned at her.

chill slid up Calm's backbone and lodged in the base of his
skull. How could Ral know? They must have been followed. He
had to get back to the cabin. But first he'd finish his business here.

He approached Ral with measured steps, balanced on the balls of his
feet. His knives came up like steel extensions of his hands, ready to carve
out the life of this man who had turned his existence inside out. Ral stood
calmly, hand resting on the sideboard. Caim didn't care. The bastard had
to die.

As Caim gathered himself for a rush, a tingle ran across his body. Ral
didn't move a muscle, but the room grew darker. For a moment, Caim
thought his powers had emerged, unbidden again, but something was different. He didn't feel the pressure behind his breastbone. And yet, a prickling tingle danced along his skin like a march of ten thousand ants. The
lamp wick flickered.

Caim half turned, keeping Ral in view, as a cloaked figure stepped out
of the shadows of the other room and stopped under the archway. Sweat
broke out under Calm's arms. He hadn't heard a sound. Shadows played
across the man's ruined, colorless features. The eyes staring back at him,
cold and black, catapulted Caim into a maelstrom of dark memories.

He had seen those eyes in his dreams, night after night, but never
thought to see them again in the flesh. He was sure of it, as sure as he
knew his own name. Once again he stood behind the fence on his father's
estate. Bodies littered the bloodied courtyard. His father knelt before a
man in black robes. White hands held his father's sword as if examining
its balance. Then, the blade struck with stunning swiftness and Calm's
father crumbled. A tiny voice screamed in the night, but Caim pushed
past the cacophony to focus on the mysterious figure. The cowl was pulled back to reveal pale, ruined features like melted tallow, features without
remorse or pity. And those eyes, sunken within their hollow sockets. Just
as he saw them now.

Caim shifted to face his father's killer.

The stranger didn't move. Wrapped in his voluminous cloak, he
watched Caim in the manner of someone observing the movements of an
insect. Caim eyeballed the span between them. Six paces. A long lunge,
but he could cover that distance in a heartbeat. He ignored his jangling
nerves as his fingers tightened around the hilts of his knives.

Pasty hands emerged from the cloaked man's sleeves. Each held a
short dagger, no longer than an eating knife, but their blades were as
black as the stranger's cloak. Black as his father's sword. A greasy finger
slid down Calm's spine, but he shook it off. He wouldn't be put off by odd
weaponry or eerie stares. He was beginning his leap when a flash to his
right triggered long-honed instincts. He stopped and ducked as Ral's
stiletto traced a path over his head.

A spasm pulsed in Calm's chest, sudden and painful, as if his heart
were trying to escape from his rib cage. He clamped down on the feeling
and pushed it back down into the depths. He couldn't lose control.
Not
now.

Sword in hand, Ral advanced beside the cloaked man. Caim edged
away. He could take Ral, but the stranger was a wild card. He didn't look
like a fighter, but his movements were sure and quick. Caim didn't know
if he could beat them both at once.

"I'll give you one last chance." Ral sounded genuine despite the
patronizing sneer plastered across his too-perfect face. "Join us and reap
the benefits. You can be my lieutenant, elevated above the slime of this
city. You'll have power, money, women-everything you've ever wanted."

Caim didn't bother answering. Because of him Josey was going to die.
She might be dead already, but he could still perform one last act as
penance for his failure. He eyed Ral's guard, sword held off-center, ready
to strike at any angle, but it left a lot of territory unprotected. Caim bent
his knees. The pressure in his chest expanded, making it hard to breathe.

"Your words are wasted on this one," the cloaked figure hissed. "Kill
him and be done."

"Yes," Ral replied with a sigh. "Perhaps you're right, Levictus."

Levictus
. Caim allowed his rage to filter through his body, down
through his arms and legs, and banish the tingles from his flesh. His
vengeance had a name.

Caim feinted at Ral, but shifted in midstride. His suete knives
stabbed, and aimed for the chest and gut of his father's killer, but they
found only air as the cloaked man drifted away like smoke on the breeze,
then flowed back with astounding speed. The black blades wove at Caim
in a complicated pattern. It was a fighting style he had never encountered
before. The man flitted like a hummingbird, first coming from the left,
and then the right, faster than anything Caim had ever seen.

At the same time, something wriggled in his peripheral vision. He
spared a glance and was almost spitted on the cloaked man's knives before
he extricated himself with a fast parry-and-backpedal. Tiny blobs of darkness detached from the room's shadows. They ran down the walls like
monstrous black tears. For a moment, he panicked, thinking he had lost
control of his powers again. But he still felt the pressure, bursting to be
free. The inky things resembled the shadows he had summoned before,
but they were different in some ineffable way. Meaner, perhaps. He
thought he could hear them hissing like a nest of asps as they crawled
across the floor. He deflected a thrust from Ral's sword. When he looked
down, the darknesses were all around him.

But where had they come from? A sibilant hiss made him focus his
attention forward as the cloaked man launched a concerted series of
attacks. Caim dodged and wove. He spun his blades in circles to disengage, and then stomped forward to press an attack, anything to evade the
cloaked man's sinister weapons. It was him. Somehow, the stranger had
called the shadows, and that meant ...

Caim swallowed hard. He had never met anyone like him, someone
who could also interact with shadows. If the cloaked man shared his abilities, what else might they have in common?

Caim hissed as a host of teeth, like tiny needles of ice, pierced his
boots. He stomped on the floor to dislodge the tiny beasts, and received a
nick across his left forearm as a black knife slipped past his guard. He
jumped back before the next flurry of attacks could strike home.

Caim couldn't afford to examine the wound, but it burned like fire.
He flexed his forearm as the sensation crept up into his shoulder. His side was beginning to throb from the exertion. Step by step Ral and Levictus
backed him into a corner, away from the window. Something cold and
revolting crawled up his calf. An image of his father's face, racked with
pain, emerged from the depths of his mind. His mother was screaming.
Caim dipped under a swipe and lunged, and his side erupted in agony, but
he blocked out the pain and extended to his fullest range. Levictus
knocked the thrust aside, but Calm's left-hand knife followed behind with
a high slash. The cloaked man jerked back just in time to save his eyes.
Instead, the knife's tip cut a gash across his face from mouth to temple.

He recovered faster than Caim anticipated and came at him fiercer
than before. Dark red blood coursed down his cheek. Caim hopped away
from the teeming darknesses and maneuvered closer to the bed. Caim
glanced across the coverlets. Ral had circled around the other side. The
killer had one foot on the mattress, sword poised to strike. A lamp of
blown glass hung over their heads.