Ghost in the Hunt (13 page)

He clapped his hands, and the slaves emerged from the palace proper, bearing more food. The other nobles and merchants began to make their way to the tables, and the dancers moved into new patterns, their shadows rippling across the wall. Cassander snapped an order to one of his bodyguards, and the Adamant Guards moved around him.

Caina scanned the courtyard, seeking paths of escape. Cassander was clearly no fool, and if he looked at her too long, if he realized who she was, she would have to escape. 

If she could.

As she scanned the Court, she saw the hooded shape move upon the wall.

###

Kalgri gazed down into the Court, the Voice hissing with anticipation. 

She saw Caina Amalas standing with the Imperial nobleman and his wife, speaking with the Grand Wazir. To Kalgri’s mild surprise, she saw Cassander Nilas standing with them. She had not expected to see the Umbarian magus again, not after he had hired her to kill the Kyracian archons who had opposed an alliance with the Order, but it did not matter. He would be smart enough to stay out of her way. If he had gotten stupider in the year since she had gone on her rampage through the Assembly of New Kyre, well, she could kill him alongside anyone else who tried to stop her.

Nobles, merchants, Immortals, Imperial Guards, and Adamant Guards filled the Court of the Fountain.

Kalgri wondered how many of them she would have to kill before the night was out.

The Voice’s hiss of anticipation grew louder.

Kalgri would start with Caina. She was the most dangerous one, after all. None of the others bore the shadow of the future upon them. 

Kalgri had discarded all traces of the serving woman. Now she wore her armor, cloak, and mask, her weapons ready in her harness. She raised her recurved Anshani bow, drew an arrow, sighted upon Caina Amalas, and released.

And in that very instant, Caina looked up and saw her.

Chapter 8 - Huntress

Caina flinched in surprise when she saw the hooded crimson shape upon the Golden Palace’s outer wall.

The motion saved her life. 

In the instant she stepped back, a dark shape flickered before her eyes and something stiff tugged at the end of her fake mustache.  A man screamed, and she saw one of the Imperial Guards next to Lord Martin stagger, an arrow jutting from a gap in his armor. The red shadow upon the wall was an archer, and Caina realized it at the same time everyone else did.

“Archer!” shouted Martin.

“Protect the Grand Wazir!” roared one of the Immortals, and the black-armored warriors hurried to his side. Some of the Immortals began running for the stairs to the ramparts, while the dancers screamed, their elaborate rhythms collapsing into chaos. The slaves gaped at the red shadow in panic, while others fled in terror, screaming a name over and over again.

The Red Huntress. The Red Huntress. 

Caina turned towards Martin, urging him to take cover. 

###

Claudia summoned her power as the red shadow upon the wall raised its bow. 

The assassin had to be here to kill Martin. Cassander had hired the assassin and planned this from the beginning, smirking while his archer maneuvered into position. The damned Umbarian seemed amused by the upheaval, gazing at the wall with his eyebrows raised as the red-cloaked figure lifted its bow again. 

But Claudia had already lost Corvalis. She would not lose Martin, too.

She would not!

Claudia flung out her hands and cast a spell. A hammer of invisible psychokinetic force leaped from her fingers and slammed into the red shape. The assassin stumbled and fell from the rampart to the courtyard eighty feet below. 

The crack of shattering bone reached Claudia’s ears, and the assassin lay motionless.

###

Caina let out a long breath as Claudia lowered her hands. 

“Good shot,” said Caina.

Claudia ignored her and hurried to Martin. “Are you all right? The arrow…it didn’t…”

“No,” said Martin, voice grim. “The Guard it struck is dead.” He glared at Erghulan. “Is this how you greet your Padishah’s guests, my lord Wazir? You invite guests into the Golden Palace and have assassins wait for them? This is an insult to the Empire and the Emperor!” 

“I did no such thing, my lord ambassador,” said Erghulan. Clearly he had not expected the assassination attempt, either. “Whoever this assassin is, it is not my doing or the Padishah’s.” Caina noticed he said nothing of Grand Master Callatas. “What of you, my lord Cassander? Have you not already sent assassins to assail an ambassador to the Padishah in his home? Will your boldness extend to dispatching assassins to the Golden Palace itself?”

Cassander blinked. “I can assure you that neither I nor the Umbarian Order had anything to do with this assassin. If you do not believe me, at least consider our reputation for clever ruthlessness. Even if the archer had been successful, every eye in the courtyard would have seen the murder. The assassin would be caught and questioned at once.” He smiled, a glint in his blue eyes. “A pity Lady Claudia was so…overenthusiastic in her response. It might have proven informative to take the assassin alive.”

“Threaten us and cast doubts upon the honor of the Lord Ambassador, rebel,” spat Claudia, “and you’ll see just how enthusiastic I can be.”

Cassander laughed. “This bastard bitch has claws!” One of the Adamant Guards let out a metallic, humorless chuckle. Martin stepped forward, hand falling to his sword hilt, and it might have gone further, but Caina raised her voice. 

“Perhaps, my lords, I might presume to make a suggestion,” said Caina, and they looked at her. She felt the weight of Cassander’s cold blue gaze. “Should we not search the assassin’s corpse? Perhaps that will give a hint as to the identity of his master.”

“Her,” said Cassander.

Erghulan blinked. “Her? A woman hired the assassin?”

“No, the assassin is a woman,” said Cassander. 

“Well, there is your Balarigar, Grand Wazir,” said Martin. “Perhaps you ought to pay my wife the bounty now.”

“No, someone was trying to scare us with an old myth,” said Erghulan. “The tale of the Red Huntress, so feared and so admired by the common rabble. Likely someone dressed a common whore in a red cloak, gave her a bow, and hoped to frighten us with an old story. It explains why her shot missed.”

“Given that she slew one of my Imperial Guards,” said Martin, “I suspect her aim was not as bad as that.”

Caina stared at the corpse below the wall, the frightened dancers keeping well away from it. The crimson cloak covered most of the body, but Caina saw no blood. A fall from that height should have resulted in a pool of blood beneath the corpse. 

Worse, she felt a faint aura of sorcery around the corpse. 

“My lords, forgive me,” said Caina, “but I suggest we withdraw inside at once.”

Erghulan blinked. “But whatever for? The food is almost here.”

She resisted the urge to yell at him. “You, my lord Grand Wazir, are the most powerful man in Istarinmul, and both Lord Ambassadors are likewise men of great influence. Surely only the most skillful assassins could succeed in taking your life. Yet this attempt was clumsy, and…”

“You fear it might have been a ruse,” said Cassander, tilting his head to the side as he regarded her. Caina did not like the sudden contemplation in his eyes. “Or a diversion. Most clever for a simple factor.”

“My lord only employs clever men,” said Caina.

“Very well,” said Erghulan. “You four.” He pointed at some of the Immortals. “Bring the dead assassin here. Let us put Master Kyrazid’s mind at ease.”

The Immortals moved towards the fallen woman, their black armor clanking.

The red shape began to twitch as they approached, the crimson cloak rippling.

###

Falling into the courtyard had hurt quite a lot.

It annoyed Kalgri to no end. 

Wasted pain infuriated her. The Voice fed on torment and stolen life force and converted it to power. But the Voice could not feed upon the pain of its vessel, which meant any pain Kalgri endured was useless. 

Fortunately, there were other sources of pain close at hand.

The Voice’s power thundered through her. She had broken her right leg, arm, and shattered most of her ribs, the fragments driving into her lungs. The Voice’s might sealed the bones back together and repaired the torn and bruised flesh. The process was excruciatingly agonizing, which irritated Kalgri further 

But then it was done, and she was whole again. The Voice always hungered, but the expenditure of power had inflamed its appetite, and the nagataaru screamed for pain, for sustenance, to gorge itself on the sweet agony of mortal souls. 

Kalgri would be happy to oblige. 

She got to her feet and saw four Immortals approaching her. A ghostly blue glow shone deep in their skull-masked helmets, and the barely-dressed dancing girls stared at them with fear. The Immortals hesitated when they saw Kalgri stand.

She could not blame them for that. Very few people survived a fall from such a height.

“The Red Huntress,” muttered one of the Immortals.

“Bah,” said a second, his black armor edged with purple as an indicator of rank. “She is merely a fool in a costume. Take her prisoner, and we shall enjoy ourselves with her for weeks.” 

The first Immortal stepped forward.

Behind her mask, Kalgri smiled, the Voice’s rage thundering through her like a storm and filling her limbs with power.

The Immortal reached for her. 

Kalgri caught his wrist with her right hand, yanked, and ripped the arm from its socket. Blood fountained from the ruined stump of his shoulder, spattering across the nearby Immortals. The unfortunate man just had time to scream before Kalgri swung his armored arm like a club, crushing his skull-masked helmet and collapsing his skull like a melon. 

The Voice howled with delight.

The corpse had not yet fallen to the ground when Kalgri killed another with the severed arm, collapsing his cuirass and reducing his heart to quivering pulp. The remaining two Immortals started to draw their swords, but Kalgri was quicker. She drew her swords from her belt and struck with the speed of the Voice. Her left-hand blade drove through an Immortal’s eye socket and sank into the brain. Her right took the remaining Immortal in the armpit as he lifted his scimitar to strike, piercing his lungs and heart, and both men collapsed dead to the ground.

The Voice gorged itself on their dying torment, and Kalgri felt the strength flow through her.

Utter silence fell over the courtyard, every eye turned toward her.

Kalgri lifted her swords and strode toward Caina Amalas.

###

Caina had seen many strange and terrible things in her time. The Immortals had been chief among them, their strength and speed and rage augmented with alchemical elixirs.

But she had never seen anyone rip off an Immortal’s arm and beat him to death with it. 

Erghulan frowned. “That’s…that’s not possible…”

The woman he had called the Red Huntress strolled forward, her long cloak streaming behind her, swords in either hand, their blades beaded with the blood of the Immortals. Beneath the cloak she wore close-fitting armor of crimson leather, reinforced with plates of red steel on the gauntlets and boots and forearms. Within the cowl of her cloak she wore a steel mask with a face of inhuman beauty, calm and serene. Her entire costume looked as if it had been dipped in fresh blood. 

Caina would have found it ridiculous, had she not just seen the Huntress kill four Immortals in as many heartbeats.

Then she glimpsed the Red Huntress’s eyes. 

The mask concealed the red-clad woman’s eyes, but Caina saw flickering shadows and purple flame through the eyeholes. The eyes of Ricimer’s corpse had burned with those strange shadows and purple flames, as had the corpse of Tarqaz in Callatas’s Maze. 

The Red Huntress had a nagataaru inside of her head. Ricimer and Tarqaz had both been dead when their nagataaru had taken control. The Red Huntress was still alive. Caina did not know how much more power a nagataaru could wield through a living host, and she did not want to find out. 

She grabbed Claudia’s sleeve.

“We have to get out of here, now,” whispered Caina. “Look at her eyes. There’s a nagataaru inside of her, one of the spirits I warned you about. If we try to fight it we’ll all be slaughtered. Tell Martin. Tell him to go now.” 

Claudia hesitated. “She’s just one woman, even with sorcerous enhancement. There are hundreds of Immortals here. Surely she cannot kill them all herself. If our Imperial Guards kill the assassin, the Grand Wazir will owe as a favor.”

The Red Huntress continued her slow, steady walk, moving with the calm grace of a lioness stalking her prey. She was headed right towards Caina. Was the Huntress the creature that Sulaman had warned her against? Then Caina realized that Martin stood behind her. The Red Huntress was coming for him, and would simply kill anyone who stood in her path. 

“You haven’t seen the nagataaru in action,” said Caina, remembering the raw strength the possessed corpses of Ricimer and Tarqaz had shown. “I have. If we stay here we are going to die. We have to get out of here now.”

Claudia frowned, but nodded. “You’re right. We…”

Suddenly the paralysis upon the others seemed to break.

“Immortals!” roared Erghulan, drawing his scimitar and pointing it at the Red Huntress. “Rid me of this intruder! Slay her in the name of the Padishah!”

“Imperial Guards!” said Martin. “Kill the assassin!”

“No!” said Claudia, but the shout of the Guards and the roar of the Immortals drowned out her words. 

Cassander backed away, beckoning for his Adamant Guards to follow him. The Umbarian magus’s expression was keen with anticipation. Like a man watching a gladiatorial game, eager to enjoy the impending carnage. 

The Imperial Guards snatched the javelins from their backs, drew back their arms, and flung the weapons at the Huntress. A storm of razor-edged steel flew at the red-clad woman. The barrage should have torn her to bloody pulp, should have left a ragged corpse upon the ground. Instead the Huntress spun in a crimson blur, her twin swords flashing around her like a vortex of steel. She dodged, blocked, and parried every last one of the javelins.