Morticai's Luck

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Chapter One

At least I found
something, Morticai thought as he tucked the papers into his pack and took one last glance around the moonlit study. Traditionalist paintings adorned the richly paneled walls. Books and maps lay in a haphazard clutter across the expensive furniture. A hawking hood, leash, and jesses lay scattered across the desk. He took one last look around to be certain he’d left everything where it had been before he’d entered—everything, except the incriminating papers he’d stolen.

He moved to the narrow window where, as always, the night view of Watchaven gave him pause. He allowed himself a moment to savor it before he glanced down to the ground, twenty-five feet below him. Deep shadows from the interplay of the two moons cloaked the still courtyard.

He could hear the muffled sounds from the servants’ party coming from the manor house, but they had changed from bawdy tavern songs to quiet murmurings. It was a good sign that the servants had discovered their drinking limits.

“Ah, Lord Aldwin,” he whispered, “if only you knew how your faithful servants celebrate your absence.”

Lowering his rope, Morticai began his descent. .Within a moment, he lightly touched down into the courtyard shadows.

“Hey!” The shout erupted from the dark recesses of the coach house.

Morticai spun around, his right arm still entwined in the ropes, and brought up a throwing knife in his left hand. He saw the blow coming, too late—it landed solidly on his right shoulder as he let go of the rope—but his knife flew sure, making certain that his opponent would strike no more. He drew his fighting dagger and held it ready in his left hand.

Shrieks ripped the night air. Morticai ignored the nearly naked women who fled from the coach house, clutching their maid’s uniforms in front of them. The well-muscled human who held his attention crouched low, ignoring his friend, who had fallen with Morticai’s dagger lodged in his throat. Morticai remembered having seen the man’s huge arms and bulging muscles before—he was Aldwin’s blacksmith, a giant of a man who was as well known for his brutal temper as he was for his strength.

The two couldn’t have been more mismatched. Although Morticai’s slight build, upswept ears, and boyish face marked him undeniably as a full corryn, he was short for his race, standing only as tall as the average human. The blacksmith easily outweighed him by a hundred pounds.

Just bloody wonderful
, Morticai thought. Of anyone who I could end up crossing, it has to be him.

The blacksmith held a dagger in his right hand. Grinning wickedly, he beckoned to Morticai with his left, inviting him to come attack. Remaining on guard, Morticai gritted his teeth against the pain in his shoulder and smiled back just as wickedly.

The man’s grin faded. He charged, lunging with his blade aimed toward Morticai’s midsection. Morticai jumped to the left, grabbed the man’s knife arm, and pulled him head first into the wall. It was a solid hit. Morticai used the momentum to spin away, and leaped toward the courtyard wall.

His timing couldn’t have been worse.

Someone hit him at full speed, and the tackle drove him back and down. His head and upper back slamming against the tower’s wall.

“No!” Morticai’s senses reeled as he fought to remain conscious. The dagger slipped from his fingers, clinked on stone, and land silently among the crushed flowers. He could smell the wine that lay heavy on his new assailant’s breath.

He pushed back against the buzzing ache in his abused head. The latest human to enter the fight was drunker than the others had been—he wasn’t punching Morticai, wasn’t attempting to throttle him. The drunk seemed content to hold him, pinned under his crushing weight. Perhaps he wanted him alive …

The fear of capture filled Morticai’s mind. He had grown up a corryn orphan in the streets of this human city, so his survival instinct, the urge to run, was strong. Driven by his terror of entrapment, he wrenched his pain-addled senses back into clarity. He snapped his knee up,
hard
, into his opponent’s groin. The human howled in agony and rolled away.

Morticai abandoned his rope and daggers and dashed for the gate. As he swung up and over, he lost his balance and fell to the cobbled street. His low-slung pack took most of the impact, but waves of dizziness washed over him. Again, he fought back against unconsciousness as more of Aldwin’s people stumbled into the courtyard. Their cries of alarm spurred him on.

Morticai gained his feet and ran as he hadn’t run in years—as though the Watch were after him, or the slavers, or worse yet, the Droken. He didn’t stop until he was far from Aldwin’s tower, deep within the tangle of narrow alleys that lay behind the aboveground entrance to the Bazaar. He looked behind him, but, for the moment, he could see no sign of pursuit. Walking carefully, he tried—not very successfully—to slow his racing heart. He had to rest. Panting and shaky, he leaned against a wall.

A ragged peddler slunk across the alley and passed him with a cautious glance. A little farther up in the shadows, a drunk moaned in his sleep. Rats, hunting for their evening meal, skittered between the drunk’s feet. Nauseated and dizzy, Morticai put his back against the wall and slid down into a sitting position. He wasn’t certain how badly he was hurt, but he knew it was worse than he’d first thought.

Gods, you’ve done it now
, he thought. Perhaps if he closed his eyes for a moment, just until his head stopped spinning …

* * *

He awoke with a start, his left hand flying to the medallion of Glawres that hung around his neck. The alley was deserted, and the twin-moon shadows indicated to him that much of the night had passed. His head pounded and his shoulder throbbed, but it wasn’t his physical condition, or even the earlier events of the night, which set him to shaking.

There were demons, called
jevano
, which preyed on people in the darkness. It was whispered that they’d been made by the Droken to prey upon the enemies of their evil god, Droka. Jevano could take corryn or human form, male or female, in order to blend in with their prey. They sapped the very life out of anyone upon whom they fed, eventually claiming the victim’s soul when he died. It was said that the
jevano
could steal not only the forms but the memories of their victims.

As a child, Morticai had sat frozen in fear as the older children told such tales. Later, he chided himself for allowing them to frighten him with legends. Then had come the night when he’d huddled in a barrel, listening to the cries of a friend who had been sleeping in a doorway only a few feet away. Morticai had peeked over the edge of the barrel, had seen his first
jevano
, and had witnessed the death of his friend. The
jevano
had never even known he was there … or, perhaps, it had simply been sated.

Whether or not a
jevano
had passed him on this night Morticai, didn’t know, but he thanked his patron, Glawres, the Levani god of the sea, that the medallion had fallen outside his shirt. Perhaps it had protected him
.

Inhaling sharply, he forced himself to start moving. He knew there would be trouble when he reached the Northgate barracks. Already, Morticai suspected that he’d be unable to make his patrol. He gained his feet and leaned heavily against the alley’s wall, waiting for his head to stop spinning.

With one hand trailing along the wall to steady himself, he started for the hiding spot, a couple of miles away, where he’d stashed his good clothes and his uniform insignia.

The barracks lay a long, long mile beyond that.