Shadow Of The Winter King (Book 1) (5 page)

Her attacker tensed at the barb, and Serris heard his teeth grind. Then the bones of the mask drew upward in a smile. “Perhaps you have no fear for him, or for yourself, but there are others you care for just as deeply.Hidden where all can see but none suspect…”

He drew something from a pouch at his belt, and Serris’s stomach lurched. She recognized the tiny straw doll, with its distinct, ratty yellow fabric topping its head to represent a mane of blonde hair. She had made that doll herself, and knew well the hands from which this man had taken it.

Slowly, Serris took her hand from the hilt of her dagger. She put her shoulders back and met the masked man’s eye. “What do you want?”

* * *

They passed the next half hour mostly in silence.

Regel led the way to the Rat Cellar, a bolthole beneath the Mangy Page tavern. He’d considered blindfolding Ovelia so she wouldn’t learn the location, but saw little purpose in it. Whether they failed or succeeded, she wouldn’t return, and if this was a trap, they would both be dead before morning.

Rat Cellar had a single, cramped room—more a root burrow than anything else, with two filthy windows above their heads that peeked out onto the cobbled alley. The cellar gave the Tears a place to stash ill-gotten gains, store supplies for quick missions, or hide from Ravalis hounds. With its few customers and uninspired fare, the tavern above did not stand out in any way. The owner owed eternal loyalty to the memory of Blood Denerre, and she would never betray the Tears to the Ravalis. It was a kind of courage rare in the World of Ruin in these latter years.

“Mask is in the Burning City.” Ovelia splashed water on her face from the basin in the corner. “Luether.”

“The City of Pyres.” Regel nodded grimly. “You really
do
need me.”

“You don’t fancy.” Ovelia gave him a wry look. “With barbarians in the streets, traitors on the throne, and Ravalis slayers close behind? Nay, I’m sure I’d be very well alone.”

Regel had to smile. Ovelia had not lost her sense of humor. “Luether, the city that burns without being consumed. It is the best place for Mask to hide.”

“And the worst.” Ovelia shivered. “I was there once, twenty years ago.”

“I remember,” Regel said. “The day Prince Darak was born and Luether died.”

Ovelia scowled, and the subject fell away for the moment.

Once, Luether had been a powerful mage-city, a place of mechanical wonder and innovation. Lenalin had given birth to Prince Darak there, the first child of the rival Bloods Denerre and Ravalis, a light in the darkness on Ruin’s Night. Ruin would not be denied, however. That very night treachery had befallen, barbarians had stormed Luether’s high walls, and only half the Denerre delegation and a few of the Blood Ravalis had escaped. Regel had sworn never to return. On that day, he would never have expected his path would lead him this way

Regel let the past burn away and focused on the present. He drew his falcata and placed them on the brick oven for consideration. He’d sheathed them bloody, which was a dishonor to the blades. He slicked them clean with water, whispered a prayer to the Old Gods, and begged forgiveness of the steel for his haste. It had been needful, and he prayed the gods understood.

For her part, Ovelia honored Draca in a similar way: she washed the blade in sacred water to purify it and whispered prayers over the ancient steel. If anything, her ritual was longer, and Regel was surprised to see the tenderness with which she handled the sword. After so many years thinking her a horrible traitor to Tar Vangr, seeing her honor the ways of Winter was...soothing.

Once the rituals were done, they set to the practical task of making ready to depart.

“Tonight. We need to hurry,” Ovelia said as they rifled the cellar’s stores. “My ship will not wait forever. The
White Dart
. Mage-caravel: immediate, hard to track, and easy to hide among the crew.”

“Solid men?”

“Smugglers.” She withdrew a rolled scroll from her mud-spattered breeches. “I’ve chartered passage with the captain—a Free Island man called Fersi.”

“You certainly plan ahead.” Regel sifted through the secreted equipment in the lockers: weapons, coin set aside in pouches, spare clothing—some for himself, and some of Serris’s things for Ovelia. Not rich clothes, but they would serve. “A skyship would be faster. We could stow away on a noble’s jaunt.”

“Few jaunts are launched these days, and the next skyship sails for Luether in at least a quarter-moon’s time. Already the Ravalis have attacked us twice. We need to leave as soon as possible.”

“Fair.” Regel offered her the clothes. “Try these.”

Ovelia raised her hands to the laces of her tunic, then looked at the floor. It was damned strange that she should be shy now when she had kissed him so hungrily less than an hour before—doubly damned, for how much it made him want her. He turned.

They undressed, back to back in the small room. Regel changed his spattered shirt, a matter of a moment, but he had not been sprayed with as much blood as Ovelia had. He doffed his spattered tunic and found, in the process, a hunk of wood that had lodged in its folds. With one hand, he held it up for inspection while the other hand rubbed at the sore spot on his side where it had chafed him. It was a piece of table, probably attached to him when they’d taken cover from the casterbolts. He hadn’t even noticed in his haste to escape with Ovelia. An image suggested itself to him, and he drew out a small, sharp knife and set to work to distract himself.

“I see you still whittle,” Ovelia said.

“Sometimes,” he said.

As he worked, his active mind fell silent, and Regel spread his senses. He was aware of the whole room, and the building above. He counted the patrons and listened to their converse. Most of them spoke of the mundane matters of the day, or took part in the persistent grousing about a coming war. A few complained of the politics of the city, of the Vangruyr Council that resisted King Ravalis’s edicts with ever greater insubordination. Tensions in the City of Winter grew hotter every year—it was a wonder the city’s eternal snows had not melted.

Regel wondered how this night’s events would affect matters. Serris could handle the Ravalis, of that he had no doubt. Despite all the madness of the last hour, she was still solid. Regel realized he hadn’t actually bade Serris farewell, but he knew she would be waiting when he returned. She’d claimed she had something to tell him, but why hadn’t she said it in the alley? Perhaps it was not important.

Regel cut a deep gouge in the chunk of wood and paused. He glanced over his shoulder.

Ovelia knelt by the ewer in the corner, praying over Draca. It had taken her a few moments to honor the sword, and now the time had come to cleanse her body, as was her family’s ritual. She’d disrobed to the waist, and her white-blonde hair was slicked to her neck. There, inked in her bare skin, was a familiar image: a dragon that rose from her waist and reached to her shoulders. The furrows of a whip distorted the image, but the serpentine beast—the Dracaris crest—was clear enough.

What shame her back must bear, Regel thought, and yet it was so proud.

With his expanded senses, Regel noted how the water dripped over her neck and shoulders, running along her smooth muscles. Ovelia laid her head on the lip of the bowl to scrub her short hair, which darkened almost imperceptibly as her ministrations eroded the dye. Her raised arms looked slim and strong, and her fingers moved delicately in the water. She seemed motherly, as though she was washing not her own hair in the copper tub, but that of a child.

“I am nearly finished,” she said, looking at him under her arm.

Regel narrowed his gaze back to his carving. “Whence the scars? I do not remember those.”

If the question rattled her, she hid it well. “The Ravalis are not the most gracious of hosts.”

Regel nodded. “There is wine if you want it.” Water dripped into the basin.

“Revenge does make for thirsty work.” She shook the last drops of water from her hair and reached for a towel.

Setting his carving aside for the moment, Regel turned to the supplies. He made a show of setting out two ceramic bowls, while at the same time his left hand found a tiny green vial secreted away between two bricks. He ran his fingers over it, considering, then looked to where Ovelia was securing one of Serris’s dresses around her muscular body.

She turned to face him and stood up straight to model the dress. “Well?” she asked awkwardly.

Regel considered. Dressed in women’s clothes she seemed softer. Serris’s things fit well enough, Regel thought, though the fabric stretched tight across Ovelia’s chest and at her hips. The Bloodbreaker had always had a robust build. “It serves,” he said.

“How flattering.” Ovelia made a face and looked away. “What of that wine?”

He drew a bowl of wine from the Cellar stores and—with his back to her so she couldn’t see—he poured a thimble’s volume of clear, odorless liquid from the green vial into the wine. She looked up when he turned back to her, and her expression turned shrewd when he held out the doctored bowl.

“I would hardly kill you
tonight
.” Regel offered what he hoped was a reassuring smile. “Not before we even begin.”

Ovelia considered, then accepted the wine but lingered over it, her brow furrowed in thought.

“What is it?” Regel asked.

“It has been a long time,” Ovelia said. “That is all.”

She drained the bowl. As she did so, Regel’s back prickled, and he thought for a moment someone was watching at the windows of the Rat Cellar. He looked and saw no one.

Part of this task was already complete, then: a slow poison in the Bloodbreaker’s belly, which he could delay with regular doses of the antidote. There was comfort in knowing that his business with her would be done, however she betrayed him, as well as something like shame.

“Prepared?” Ovelia asked.

Regel nodded, and they left for the docks.

Three

A
s the night wore
on toward dawn, a cold mist rolled across Tar Vangr’s low-city docks, where less than half a dozen ships rocked uneasily in the chilly waters of the Dusk Sea. With conditions on the sea and land so cold and inhospitable, only the most daring and desperate captains dared venture north to do trade in the coldest season. Nestled between craggy, impassable ridges of icy rock and perpetual, shifting icy floes, the docks defied an invasion in the best of seasons, and avalanches had been known to seal it off during the nearly constant winter. Spending too much time in Tar Vangr was never a good choice for any captain, as green-tinged mist crept up from the cloudy waters in any season, discoloring sails and enfusing wooden hulls with a persistent stench worse than that of salt or rotting fish.

Regel and Ovelia paused at the edge of the docks beneath the shadow of the Cathedral of Amanul. A relic of the long-dead Calatan Empire, the mighty building towered up to high-city and beyond. No ritual had passed there since the coronation of King Demetrus Ravalis, whose reign had proved anything but godly. Now the Cathedral served as a communal home for the impoverished, tended by weary priests. The Winter God Amanul was dead or gone, and his church had lost its majesty.

“Much and many have been lost,” Ovelia said at his side.

“All things pass to Ruin,” Regel finished.

He realized that Ovelia had not spoken of the temple, but was instead gazing at a building on the north side of the street: a marking hall called Nefeti’s Art of the Flesh. The crest bore a sigil of a fearsome crimson phoenix painted on an upright palm. Located in low-city, Nefeti’s was not a particularly prestigious or wealthy establishment, and it looked like it did little business these days. Highborn Vangryur often employed master flesh artists to come straight to their holdfasts, and in these latter years smallfolk rarely earned names and marks, much less could they afford to pay real artists. Things had not always been thus. Once, when mystic arts had shaped the mage-cities, even smallfolk had worn the images of beasts that could come to life at command or even spring forth from their wearer’s bodies.

“Did I ever tell you the story of my dragon?” Ovelia nodded over her shoulder.

Regel shook his head.

“Lenalin and I,” Ovelia said. “When we were girls, named but not marked, she—she came up with this plan. We sneaked away from the palace. Perhaps Nefeti did not know us, or else he wished not to offend us. Either way, he gave us the matching marks we asked for.”

“In one night?” Regel touched his simple teardrop tattoo, which had taken an hour to craft.

“Several nights,” Ovelia said. “For a moon, we came to this place whenever we could get away unnoticed. We’d sneak out and make our way here, hand-in-hand. It was my duty to protect her, you understand, but I’d have gone anyway.” She touched the back of her neck.

“It was painful,” Regel said.

“Very.” Ovelia winced. “I held my silence throughout, as best I could. I...” She looked at her empty fingers. “I held Lena’s hand when she cried out. She clutched my hand so tightly.”

“You wanted to have your own marks of your own making,” Regel said. “Brave.”

“We were foolish,” Ovelia said. “The king was furious, of course, but Lena soothed him. She... she had a gift with words, and he forgave us. I was punished for my indiscretion, of course, but then, I deserved it. Honor would have permitted no less.” Ovelia smiled wanly.

“Indeed.” Regel had been there, secretly following Ovelia and Lenalin, and he himself had told the king of their childish rebellion. Orbrin had commanded Regel to follow them every time they slipped away—a lurking shadow to ensure their safety. “We should make haste.”

“Yes.” Ovelia pointed to one of the ships in particular, where hooded lanterns burned faintly. “If we tarry, Captain Fersi will sail without us, and it is a long swim to the Summerlands.”

Ships groaned gently in their low-city moorings, shifting with the dawn tide. The lanterns led them to a merchant caravel with white and red sails, the words
White Dart
emblazoned on the keel. Next to the script ran the likeness of a white bird of prey on a silver field. Regel conceived respect for this Fersi’s courage, to bear a crest with Denerre’s colors, subtle as it might be. In a world where the art of words faded year by year, symbols had great power.

A cry rose aboard the
Dart
. Crewmen appeared at the banister, displeased faces peering down at them shrewdly. The ship must have been waiting for some time. Then one of them spoke.

“Ah, Lady Aniset!” The boistrous voice seemed to address Ovelia with this name that did not belong to her. A thick-set man pushed between the sailors and bowed to them from the top of the boarding plank. “I was beginning to fear you would not come.”

The man had a thick accent that made his words awkward. His deeply tanned skin and bleached white hair marked him for a Free Islander, and the many gold rings and jewels in his ears and nose spoke of the Islands’ exotic traditions. The islands had not fallen to Ruin, but sages debated whether they’d ever been civilized in the first place. Pirates and deserters lived there, hidden from the mage-cities’ flying seekers in endless networks of caves and secluded coves.

“Captain Fersi,” Ovelia said, inclining her head. “Circumstances have been... difficult.” For the first time, Regel noted spotted blood from the battle on one of Ovelia’s boots. “May we board?”

“First, the passing words, if you please,” Fersi said, “or my men bolt you to the docks, m’lady.”

Regel saw that most of the crewmen had drawn and aimed casters.

“We are who we claim to be, Captain,” Ovelia said. “By Winter’s fall.”

“Until it should rise anew,” Fersi intoned, then nodded. “It’s about time, lady. We almost missed the tide.” He held up a hand, and the casters disappeared back into weather cloaks.

Ovelia took the captain’s arm while Regel looked around at the crewmen. Two dozen hard faces confronted him, their eyes daring him to reach for a weapon. He understood the suspicion, considering the significance of the passing words. Clearly, these were Denerre loyalists, which implied that they didn’t know Ovelia’s identity as the Bloodbreaker. If they puzzled it out, this would be a short voyage. The woman had lost none of her nerve, he had to admit.

“You seem unwell, Lady. Have you been mishandled this night?” Fersi’s eyes flicked to Regel.

“No,” Ovelia said in a tone that brooked no question. “This is my manservant, Norlest.”

The men nodded. For a man to bear the name Norlest—the old king’s First Shield and best friend—meant he was no friend to the Ravalis. Regel said nothing. “Men shut their eyes when they open their mouths,” Orbrin had told him once, and the words had proved true many times. Regel could not tell if Fersi accepted their tale as quickly. He had a distrustful face and suspicious eyes that scrutinized them to minute detail. He may appear casual, but beneath his exterior hid a cunning, scrupulous pirate.

“I have only one cabin to offer,” the captain said. “Your man could take a hammock in the commons if you wish. Unless—” Fersi passed appraising eyes over Regel, no doubt assessing whether he warmed his mistress’s bed. After all, “Lady Aniset” had no ladies in waiting. But weathered Regel hardly looked like a lady’s doxy. Perhaps a consort?

“Show me the cabin, Good Captain,” Ovelia said, without answering Fersi’s speculation.

While the crew eyed Ovelia, the captain led them to a cabin opposite his own in the aftcastle. It was a simple, curved room, perhaps five paces at the longest. It bore a single bed, at the foot of which sat a strongchest without a lock. A copper basin rested on a table in one corner.

“The door locks from the inside and out.” Fersi handed Ovelia a long, three-toothed key. “I have the only other. You are welcome to this cabin and the upper deck. Meals are in my cabin, unless you wish to dine with the crew.” Fersi shrugged. “This I do not advise. The men have a crude view of your sex. Best not to start conflicts among them.”

Regel saw Ovelia’s jaw tighten, but she had the sense to hold her tongue. Among the civilized Tar Vangyur, a warrior carried his worth in his sword, not in his breeches. Some of the barbarian Free Islanders did not even allow women on their ships. Foolish, in Regel’s opinion, but he supposed if a man thought of a woman only as a pleasure to be had, her presence would make such a man forget his work. Such a man was a coward and an idiot, but he would keep such thoughts to himself in this place.

When Fersi looked at Ovelia, the same desire burned there, but he was refined enough to attempt to disguise it. “As to the discussed payment—?”

“Have my thanks, Captain.” Ovelia handed him a pouch that clinked with coin. “The rest awaits you at our destination, as we agreed.”

Fersi hesitated a bit too long, looking at her, pondering. Ovelia met that gaze, then looked away. She did not smile, but Regel could sense her body warming a touch.

“Of course, Lady.” Fersi inclined his head. “And so I leave you in peace.” Then, with his palms pressed together, he bowed them farewell and shut the door behind him.

“A pleasant leavetaking,” Ovelia said. “After I delayed his voyage so long.”

“Don’t take it to heart,” Regel said. “Pirates of the Free Isles say those same words over enemy ships they have scuttled—usually with the crew still aboard.”

“So I have heard.” Ovelia gripped the key tighter.

Watching Ovelia, Regel pondered the look that had passed between her and the captain. Had Ovelia made another arrangement about which Regel did not know?

Seemingly oblivious to his scrutiny, Ovelia crossed to the bed. She traced her fingers along its blankets, gazing at them longingly. She must have been exhausted.

“I’ll take first watch,” Regel said, “in case Fersi crosses us.”

“If he does, it won’t be within sight of the shore. We should be safe this night.” Ovelia shrugged off her cloak. “Shall I use the bed, or would you have me on the floor?”

Regel tried to ignore her choice of words. He would certainly not be
having
her anywhere. He turned his back so she could disrobe with privacy. “Before the crew,” he asked at length, “why did you name me
Norlest
?”

He heard Ovelia’s borrowed leathers creak. “Why not?”

“This name is not mine,” Regel said. “It belonged to the Winter King’s First Shield, before you.”

“Norlest is the most common name taken by worthy boys of our generation.”

“
Our generation
, indeed.” Once, the six winters he had over Ovelia had seemed so long. Now, they had both grown old, and they seemed not so different.

“What boy would not want to honor such a champion of Tar Vangr?” Ovelia shrugged. “Norlest, the hero. Norlest, the noble.”

“Norlest, your father.”

She said nothing as she stripped off her tunic and laid it on the bed. “You do not remind me of him, if that is what you are asking,” she said. “You never did. He was a man of honor.”

Regel let that slight flow past him. “And who is Aniset?”

“My mother. She—” Ovelia’s words cut off in a groan and she touched her belly.

“What ails?” he asked, though he knew well. The green vial. The poison acted fast.

“Not to worry,” she said. “The sea, mayhap. I’ve never had a sailor’s stomach.”

“Would you take tea to settle it?” He drew a tin from his pack. “Jasmine, your favorite?”

“Of course you remembered tea.” The tiniest of smiles crossed Ovelia’s face.

Regel set the kettle to boil and took a ceramic tankard from the shelf. Into it, shielding his work with his body, he slipped a small measure of sweet-soul powder to delay the venom in her belly. As the tea brewed, he poured some of the antidote into the tin and shook it to mix the grains.

When he turned back, Ovelia wore a blanket wrapped about herself, her hair ringing her head in a silvery corona. Their fingers touched as he gave her the tankard.

“What now?” Ovelia ran her fingers along the bottom of the tankard with a soft whisper of skin on clay. “Will you sleep in here with me?” Her eyes widened. “I meant—”

“I know what you meant,” he said. “I think a hammock among the servants is best.”

Ovelia nodded, though he saw disappointment flicker briefly in her eyes. What did she expect?

Regel shut the cabin door behind him. The coming morn dawned chill and dark, its gloom splitting around the few lanterns on the
Dart
’s deck. As the smugglers went about their duties, Regel tried to force the image of Ovelia’s naked back out of his mind.

He climbed down into the common area, where two dozen sailors eyed him. They were working men, stained with the salty winds and callused from years spent doing the mundane duties of a ship. Some could carry themselves well in a fight, he knew, and they sized him up immediately as a potential threat.

Regel did nothing to allay or confirm their suspicions. He looked around for the empty hammock Fersi had promised, and found it strung haphazardly in a corner near a particularly foul-smelling sailor and what looked like the ship’s commode. Not that it functioned, of course—its purpose these days seemed to be to collect as much filth as possible.

This would be a long voyage indeed.

* * *

Not too far from the docks, a man grunted as he worked his will upon hired flesh that writhed and feigned excitement. Their efforts steamed the grimy windows of the rented room.

The Necromancer sighed and tried to put such cynical waste of life from his mind.

Outside, the rain relented in its assault on low-city Tar Vangr, but thunder roiled in the distance and lightning split the gray clouds that shrouded the moon. They cast the soaring mountain that formed the center of the last remaining mage-city into sharp relief, making it loom over the lice-ridden docks like an eternal specter. It seemed, on such nights, that the World of Ruin actively sought to wipe away the last remnants of the Empire of Calatan.

But what would spring up in its place? When the bickering noble bloods were ground into the dirt where they belonged, what would rise in a world purified of the weak? Would anyone at all?