Lament (Scars of the Sundering Book 2) (22 page)

The cultist gasped for breath as
his chest sank, outlining his ribs in parchment-like flesh. “Aita take you but
not until the Queen has her way!” He flung the axe at Pancras.

The minotaur ducked under the
flying blade. Gisella pulled her spear out of the cultist’s grasp and then
thrust it forward, impaling the man under the chin. She loosed a battle cry,
pushing, driving him back until the tip of her spear burst out the back of his
neck, spraying the wall with blood.

Gisella planted her boot on the
cultist’s chest and pushed him as she withdrew her spear. He collapsed onto the
floor.

Qaliah walked over to him and
aimed her crossbow.

“He’s dead.” Gisella regarded the
minotaur. He stood, brushing the dirt and flour off his robes.

“Just making sure.” Qaliah fired
the bolt into the cultist’s head.

“I guess they didn’t all leave or
kill themselves.” Pancras knelt alongside the cultist. The man was clad only in
a kilt. His fingernails were elongated and sharpened, and his teeth had been
filed into points.

“Think he’s the only one?” Qaliah
cocked her crossbow and fitted another bolt.

Gisella cleaned the tip of her
spear on the cultist’s kilt. “Let’s make sure.”

Pancras’s eyes appeared glassy.
She brought him and the fiendling into the main room, into the sunlight. The
whites of the minotaur’s eyes were black, and his fur seemed darker, the
whispers of white on his chin gone.

“You look different, Pancras. Are
you sure you’re all right?”

“I… am…” Pancras’s eyes rolled
back in his head, but he remained upright. A shadow enveloped him, spreading
its smoky wings. Red-tinged emerald tendrils swirled around him. “
Seeko osta
sto choma kai na
—”

“Pacha’s blue balls, I see it!”
Qaliah jumped backward and raised her crossbow.

“No wait!” Gisella lunged for the
fiendling. She didn’t yet understand the powers at work, but was certain
shooting the minotaur was not the solution.

“
Ipakousoun tis entoles mo
!”

The tendrils of energy, now more
fiery crimson than emerald, shot from his body in every direction. Qaliah
loosed her bolt. The missile impacted dead center in Pancras’s chest, burying
itself to the fletching. He fell to his knees, laughing, a choking, gurgling
sound, and then collapsed.

“Bugger this.” Qaliah threw the
crossbow to the ground and drew her sword. Gisella heard Edric shout from
outside. She ran into the courtyard, spear held at the ready. Bodies lashed to
stakes thrashed and groaned, and those that weren’t tied down lurched to life,
staggering toward the dwarf. When they noticed Gisella and Qaliah, they turned
toward them as well.

“Aita, take him.” Gisella smashed
the butt of her spear into the nearest decaying face, then impaled the next
dead cultist. He writhed on her spear, like a fish, and then grabbed the haft
and forced his way down toward her. Gisella pushed her spear away and drew her
sword. A garrison of the dead advanced on her and the fiendling.

Qaliah slashed at the nearest
dead face. “Do you think swords will do any good? How do you kill the dead?”

The Golden Slayer, experienced at
fighting wizards, and sometimes oroqs, goblins, and other men, never fought the
dead before, so she didn’t know the answer to Qaliah’s question. With a
backhanded swing, Gisella sent the head of an advancing soldier tumbling to the
ground. The body collapsed. The slayer’s lips drew a tight line on her face.
“Cut them to pieces.”

* * *

Kale pulled the strongbox out of
his pack. Ever since Pancras left, he’d kept the money the minotaur left them
hidden and out of sight. He never took the time to count it before, but he
needed to know how much money remained. From the weight and sound of coins,
there was quite a bit. He dumped it out on the bed.

But will it be enough?

He counted it twice by the time
Kali returned. In addition to the gold crowns, silver talons, and copper
pennies, there were a handful of gems taken from Drak-Anor’s treasury.

“What did you find out?” Kale
shut the strong box as Kali sat on the bed beside him.

“The owner died fifty years ago.
The last of her kin died five years ago. Technically, the city owns that
building.”

Kale chewed on his finger. “So,
can we buy it from the city?” He wanted the shop that led down to the runic
circle, and one way or another, Kale would find a way to acquire it.

“We need to speak to one of the
magistrates at the Hall of Records.”

Kale shoved the strongbox in his
pack, placed his puzzle box on top of it, and hopped off the bed. “Great! Let’s
go.”

Kali grabbed his hand. “Why is
this so important? It’s just a moldy old shop.”

“It’s not the shop.” Kale took
Kali’s other hand and pressed his forehead against hers. “It’s that
rune-covered circle I found. It’s important. I know it, Kali. Deli can figure
out what it all means, but I don’t want to risk someone else getting to it
first.”

“If we hurry, we can probably see
the magistrate today.” Kali slid off the bed. Kale followed her, and they left
The Granite Anvil. The Council District of Muncifer was in the shadow of
Grimstone Keep. All governmental functions, the courts, the Council of Elders,
the various trade guild halls, the Hall of Records, they were all in the
Council District. This part of the city was crowded, though it contained fewer
draks and minotaurs than Kale saw in the undercity and many more humans. He
spied a couple of elves and a dwarf or two, likely visiting dignitaries.

The two draks passed a temple of
Anetha on their way to the Hall of Records. Most cities featured a splendid
temple to the goddess of wisdom and civilization, and a lesser one to Hon, the
god of marriage, family, and pacts. Anetha’s Hall soared above the surrounding
buildings, a gleaming white monument that stood in contrast to the rest of the
grey buildings around it.

Hon’s Temple stood behind
Anetha’s Hall and next door to the Hall of Records. Kale noted how diminutive
it appeared next to the goddess’s temple. Were it not for the twin hearths
flanking its double doors, Kale would have mistaken it for an ordinary
building, perhaps a government office.

Groups of citizens entered and
exited the Hall of Records in steady streams. The stairs leading to the doors
were flanked by busts of former rulers of Muncifer, a mix of humans and
minotaurs. Inside, clerks rushed to and fro, and every one moved with precise
purpose. Everyone except Kale and Kali.

Kale held up a hand and flagged
down a clerk. “Excuse me, we need help.” The man shook his head as he rushed
past. He tried again with the next one and was once again ignored.

Kali nudged him. “Spit some fire
at the ceiling. That’ll get their attention.”

Looking up, Kale took in the
beauty of the colorful fresco that decorated the ceiling. He didn’t want to
damage it and suspected doing so would land him in jail. He stopped the next
clerk who walked by, spreading his wings in front of the man to block his path.

The clerk tilted his head up and
clenched his jaw.. “Yes? What is it? What do you want?” His arms full of
scrolls, his red-rimmed eyes, and unkempt beard suggested he was overworked.

“We need to speak to the
magistrate in charge of abandoned property.” Kali peeked over one of Kale’s
wings. “Can you tell us where to find him?”

“He’s… let’s see, I don’t have
time for this.” The clerk’s eyes flicked to the ceiling, before gesturing with
his head to a spiral staircase in the far corner of the room. “I think he’s in
the archives right now. Magistrate Yulian Bukhgalter.” He shook himself free of
Kale’s grasp and continued on his way.

The archives were located on the
top floor of the Hall of Records. A balding man with a close-cropped beard
shuffled through a rack of scrolls. He glanced over when Kale and Kali entered
the room, but he made no other sign of acknowledgement.

“Are you Magistrate Yulian
Bukhgalter?” Kale raised his hand in greeting.

“Yes. Two draks.” He pulled a
scroll from the rack and walked over to a desk. “What do you want? Do you have
business here?”

Kale shook his pack, hoping the
jingling of coins within would catch the magistrate’s attention. “We’re
interested in one of the abandoned shops in the undercity.”

“We were told we had to speak to
you about it.” Kali stood on her tiptoes and rested her chin on the top of the
desk.

“Where did you obtain the money?”
He narrowed his eyes and pushed Kali’s head off the desk. “Most of your kind
just squat in abandoned shops down there.”

Kale dropped his pack on the
floor with a resounding thud. “We brought it with us. Maybe you didn’t notice,
but we’re not from around here.”

The magistrate grunted. “You all
look the same to me.”

Holding out her hand, Kali
grabbed Kale’s and held it next to hers. “Really? Black and red stripes look
the same as orange and look the same as all the grey and blue draks you have
around here? Are humans colorblind?”

“No.” The magistrate crossed the
room and opened a ledger. “Which property is it?”

Kale chewed his lip. “It’s under…
a, umm, rocks? Undercity near, umm… there’s another shop nearby. I don’t know
what they sell; I didn’t look…”

While he hemmed and hawed, Kali
shook her head and sighed. “It’s at the bottom of the undercity, on a street
just off the main thoroughfare by the Shadow Bridge. The shop itself is a
storefront, a storage room, and living quarters. The owner died fifty years
ago; the last of her kin, five. The guards couldn’t give me names.”

Magistrate Bukhgalter flipped
through his ledger. He stopped near the front and scanned the pages with his
finger. “Ah, yes. Belen’s Candles. Fifty crowns and you’ll be expected to clean
it up and keep it maintained. Someone will inspect it regularly until we’re
satisfied that you are doing so.”

Fifty crowns was far less than
Kale expected. He dug through his pack until he found the strongbox and then
searched through that. A quick count showed there were nowhere near that many
gold coins. He picked up a small ruby and held it up to the light between two
claws. The magistrate watched him with a frown.

“I don’t have that many crowns. I
have this.” He offered the ruby to the magistrate.

Yulian took the gem and examined
it. “Where did you acquire this?”

“I brought it from home, from
Drak-Anor.”

Kali hissed at him and put away
the rest of the money as a scribe entered. The man crossed the room, grabbed a
scroll, and left without looking up.

“That’s near Ironkrag, yes? It
will be sufficient. I’ll have a clerk meet you at the shop with the deed.” He
pocketed the gem and tapped the edge of his desk. “Don’t flaunt that wealth so
openly. No one will admit it, but there is a guild of thieves operating in the
undercity.”

“Oh yes, of course.” Kale
rearranged his pack to conceal the strongbox. “We’ll be careful.”

As they exited, Kali took Kale by
the arm. “Did that seem too easy to you?”

Now that his mate mentioned it,
the transaction seemed to go a bit too smoothly to Kale. Thus far, he’d seen
nothing to suggest the humans in town possessed any sort of concern for draks.
He was always willing to give the benefit of the doubt, however, and there were
always exceptions to every rule.

“Maybe he’s one of the nice
ones?”

“A bureaucrat?” Kali laughed and
squeezed his arm. “You’re one of the nice ones.”

They made their way back to The
Granite Anvil and gathered their possessions and Delilah’s. Then they told the
innkeeper where they were headed in case Delilah came looking for them. When
they arrived at their new home, Kale carried their packs to the living
quarters. Together, they began the process of cleaning up their new home.

* * *

“You must concentrate!” Master
Valyrian snapped his fingers. The box Delilah attempted to retrieve
telekinetically flew at her head as the snap of the elf’s fingers broke her
concentration.

She ducked and glared at him. “I
was concentrating until you interrupted me.”

Master Valyrian clucked his
tongue. “The real world is full of distractions. You must learn to block out
such things.”

Delilah leaned on her staff.
“I’ve been using my magic in battles since I first figured out how to use it.
Using magic in a fight is nothing like trying to learn a new technique while a
tree-hugging elf snaps his fingers in your face.”

“Fair enough.” The elf picked up
the box and walked it over to the empty spot on the shelf where it once sat.
His chambers were wall-to-wall shelves and bookcases filled with more
bric-a-brac than Delilah had ever seen gathered in one location outside of a
junk shop.

“You know the words. You can work
the magic. You just need to practice your control. As long as you don’t break
the box during the trial, you should pass.” He turned to face her, wand at the
ready. “Shall we practice your abjurations?”