The Shadowdance Trilogy Read online

  “I was told you never failed,” Yoren said. He had tied his blonde hair behind his head, giving his face a stretched, dangerous look. “I was told even Thren Felhorn would quake if he knew you came for him; so how did some fool-headed merchant defeat you so easily?”

  “If you had come,” Nava said, her voice cold enough to freeze water, “then you might have seen for yourself. You’d have died, but at least you’d have your answer.”

  Alyssa thought he might reach for his sword, but before he could, the rest of the faceless women arrived. Nava greeted the others with curt nods. They sat side-by-side near the fire, facing Yoren and Alyssa.

  “Why are you alone out here?” Eliora asked him. “Shouldn’t you have retainers and servants? These are no conditions for one of Alyssa’s birth.”

  “Have you thought that perhaps I’m hiding here?” Yoren asked. “I can survive on my own. Only one hunter has spotted my fire, and I paid him well enough to leave us alone.”

  “Then he will only be the richer when he sells your secret for twice the amount,” Eliora replied. “Don’t be a fool. You must move elsewhere.”

  Again Alyssa expected an angry reaction, and again she was surprised by how docile her lover reacted.

  “If you think it wise,” he said. His arms wrapped tighter around her, and sighing contently, she let him tuck her head underneath his chin. Her breath blew across his neck.

  “It may not be too late,” Nava suggested. “If we kill Lord Gemcroft before he can appoint a new successor, by law Alyssa inherits his wealth and business transactions.”

  “No,” Alyssa said as she pulled away from Yoren’s arms. “I don’t want him killed. Whatever he’s done to me doesn’t deserve that. I worry for my family, my father included. These thief guilds will destroy everything my family has worked for. I can’t allow that. That’s why I must take over.”

  “She is the last,” Eliora said. “Maynard may not remove her from his will, for if he does, the Gemcroft line dies with the stroke of his pen.”

  “Stop it,” Alyssa said. “All of you. I will not let you kill him. He will not banish me, not forever. I know my father. Given time, he will accept me back.”

  “Time you may not have,” Eliora said darkly.

  “Ladies, I believe my lovely needs a rest,” Yoren said. “If you might give us some privacy? Perhaps tomorrow morning we’ll have a reasonable plan prepared. For now, I think we’re all a bit upset over how things fell apart.”

  The faceless women slipped through the trees, with only Eliora glancing back. She said nothing, though Alyssa felt her eyes peering at her through the thin white cloth.

  “I’m sorry,” Alyssa said as she sat back down by the fire. She wasn’t sure what for, but guilt weighed heavy on her shoulders. Whether by her own actions or not, she felt she had failed so many people. Yoren put his hand on her shoulder, and she was thankful for his kindness.

  “Everyone makes mistakes,” Yoren said. He paced behind her, and the silence she hoped he’d end stretched out longer and longer.

  “I couldn’t bear to see him dead,” she said. Yoren’s pacing made her nervous. What was troubling him so badly?

  “Sometimes good men must die to further the cause of something greater,” Yoren said.

  “Yes, but I--”

  She felt a hand grab her shoulder. Before she could scream, another was around her throat. Yoren lifted her up and flung her against a tree. She whimpered, the sound muffled against his gloved fingers as her back pressed hard against the rough bark. When she looked into his eyes, she saw that same fire that had always aroused her lust and called her to his bed. This time anger mixed with the lust. She felt she looked into the eyes of a stranger.

  “Listen well, girl,” Yoren said. He was trying to remain calm, and he had to grit his teeth to keep himself from shouting. “We have gambled everything on your ascension. Do you understand that? You are an outcast and a bloody fool if you think your father will not write you out of his will this very night. You are dead to him. He might as well be dead to you.”

  He paused as if waiting for her to answer. She weakly nodded her head.

  “Good. You understand. Since you’re in a listening mood, let’s get a few things straightened out. You serve me now. When I am not near, you serve my family. We will do everything to put you back into power, and I mean everything, you stupid girl. I expect our loyalty repaid. Our children will inherit the Gemcroft fortune. Our grandchildren will dance in the mines your father chokes with axes and slaves.”

  He slowly removed his hand from her mouth. Her whole body quivered. When he kissed her, she fought down an impulse to throw up.

  “The Gemcroft name is doomed,” he said. “We Kulls will replace its glory. Everything of Maynard’s will be mine.”

  He stroked her hair.

  “Everything…”

  He undid his trousers and took her there, pressed against the tree. As her back bled across the bark, she swore to make him pay. As his hands fumbled across her breasts, her tears running down her face, she swallowed her anger and shame and let it burn away her self-illusions. She didn’t know how, she didn’t know when, but come her ascension to the estate that was rightly hers, she would not let a dog like Yoren have a single taste of its power.

  Yoren is right, she thought as he grunted louder. I am such a stupid girl. But that girl dies tonight.

  Yoren would be the next to die, and unlike her, he would not be reborn wiser, stronger. He’d just stay dead.

  6

  Robert Haern remembered his comment to Thren Felhorn about the cruelty of King Vaelor’s prisons, and his dry, bleeding lips cracked a smile. How prophetic those words seemed now. His arms were chained above his head, each shoulder pulled out of socket. The tips of his toes brushed the ground. Every morning, a guard came in and raised him higher, so that with the stretching of his skin and the greater pull on his dislocated joints, he still brushed the ground with his toes.

  He’d come to fantasize about those toes. He wanted to feel the weight of his body on them, to flex and curl them in grass while his back lay comfortably supported on solid ground. Robert sipped soup from a spoon at midday, which was held by a small boy who went from cell to cell carrying a little wooden stool.

  What madman lets such a young child work in this pit? he had wondered the first time the door opened and the dirty-haired boy stepped in. Now he didn’t wonder. Instead he tilted his head back, opened his lips, and waited for the soothing liquid.

  Dreams came and went. They did so easily enough with old men, and the droning boredom only increased their vividness and frequency. There were times he thought he stood at the bedside of the king, telling humorous stories to scare away the nightmares that pierced his mind. Other times he was with his wife, Darla, who had passed away of dysentery a decade ago. She hovered before him with startling brightness, looking as she did when they first met. Light streamed through her blonde hair, and when she touched his face he pushed against it, only to have soup spill across his cheek.

  “Stop it and hold still,” the boy told him, the only time he’d spoken.

  Robert drank the soup while tears trickled down the sides of his wrinkled face.

  Now it was night, although he only knew because of the changing shift of the guards. The bars were thick around him, and there were no windows. He marked the days by the tasting of his soup, and by his estimate, it had only been four.

  “Four,” he muttered, hoping he wouldn’t cry again. He was tired of crying. “Only four.”

  He remembered men Edwin had sentenced for ten, twenty, even thirty years. Often the punishments had little to do with the crime, and more to do with the look of the man and his ability to grovel convincingly. Robert wondered what his own punishment might be. No matter how much he hoped, he knew his imprisonment was until death. He was old; it wouldn’t be long.

  The bars rattled, and he heard a soft bang on the door. His head tilted backward almost instinctively. Part of his min
d thought it was too early for soup, but perhaps he had dreamed, or maybe he was just too hungry and thirsty to care about the time of day.

  Arms wrapped around his waist. When he opened his mouth to scream, a hand rammed over it to stifle the noise.

  “Silence, old man,” a deep voice rumbled in his ear. Robert opened his eyes to look, but they were full of tears. Through blurred vision he saw three strangers, cloaked and almost invisible in the darkness.

  “This will hurt,” said another voice, this one feminine. Then fire erupted through every joint in his body. His shoulders felt like the center of the inferno. He might have screamed again, but if he did, he wasn’t aware. All he knew was that the giant hand across his mouth pressed tighter. The chains rattled above his head. He heard a click. A sudden lurch followed, and though his whole body flushed with pain, he felt a wonderful, delirious satisfaction in the sudden feel of his weight resting no longer on his dislocated arms but instead the chest of another.

  “We don’t have much time,” said a new voice, male and not as deep as the first. “We need to go, and quick.”

  “We’ve killed too many,” said the deep voice. “Thren will not be pleased.”

  “As long as we’ve got Robert, he’ll keep his displeasure in check. Now hurry!”

  The ache in Robert’s shoulders had begun to fade, and a dim part of his mind was aware that they were no longer dislocated. That knowledge was little comfort when he felt himself thrown over the shoulder of what must have been a giant man. The sudden movement churned his stomach, and he vomited all over the man’s back.

  “Lovely,” he heard his rescuer say.

  Robert clamped his teeth tight as his body bounced up and down with each hurried step. Someone was rescuing him, so screaming was bad, screaming was dangerous. Silence was golden. His muscles were aflame, his joints throbbed, but the only sound he made was a soft, quiet sob.

  To take his mind off the pain, he tried to visualize the prison in his mind. He had been there plenty of times, usually accompanying Edwin on some morbid jaunt past all the cells. He was always mistrustful of his commands being carried out, so seeing men he had pronounced worthy of punishment actually being punished always put a smile on his face. Those trips had given Robert ample opportunity to memorize the layout.

  From what he remembered, he was on the third floor. Below were two more floors, where the punishment was far more active and brutal. To get out, they’d need to pass upward two floors to the entrance. Each stairway was locked and guarded. But if he was being rescued, perhaps they had killed the guards, or rendered them…

  He moaned as the man carrying him skidded to an abrupt halt. The woman cursed. When Robert opened his eyes, his awkward position disorientated his vision, and he closed them to prevent another wave of vomit. The smell of it was still strong from the first time, although compared to the stench of his cell, he figured he could endure it. Sounds of steel and drawn weapons met his ears.

  “Who?” he asked. His voice seemed meek compared to the rest of the sounds around him. “Who sent you?”

  “Thren,” said the big man. “Now shut your mouth.”

  Robert wasn’t sure he could speak even if he wanted to. Steel rang against steel. He heard a man scream. Then they were running, his head bobbing up and down with each step. Stairs, Robert realized. They were going up a flight of stairs.

  More sounds of battle. It was so strange hearing the fight without a visual accompaniment. The sound of a sword striking armor could be good or bad. Each cry of death could be one of his rescuers, or a man blocking his exit. He found that his mind was too exhausted to hope one way or another. Honestly, he hoped they failed the attempt, and that he was killed along with the rest. Because if Thren Felhorn wanted him, then the only place safer than the Golden Eternity was back in his cell.

  A sound of trumpets flooded the prison. The big man carrying him swore long and loud. Robert was gently placed on the ground, ground which felt beautifully firm underneath his tucked knees. The stone was cold, but he didn’t mind. He shivered, and absently he wondered if he had a fever. No longer upside-down, Robert slowly opened his eyes and watched the battle to save his life raging around him.

  A beautiful woman with raven hair twirled by a doorway leading deeper into the prison. Daggers flew from her hands, unable to score killing blows through the thick armor of the guards but stalling them nonetheless. Robert glanced the other way. Down past rows of cells made of thick stone and sealed wooden doors was the final set of stairs. Ten guards pressed their way down, with only four having made it off the steps. Two men held them back, wielding long daggers with such precision that Robert knew they were men of Felhorn. One was a thin, wiry man with blonde hair while the other looked like a dark-skinned giant. All three of his rescuers wore the gray cloaks of the Spider Guild.

  Robert closed his eyes as guard after guard died. With the trumpet sound, they would come endlessly. Three against a multitude; Robert didn’t need all his wits to know the likelihood of escape. He waited for rough hands to grab his soiled clothes, or perhaps a blade to pierce his chest. Death after death he heard, their cries a chorus of blood and skill. And then rough hands grabbed him, but instead of hauling him back to his cell they flung him over the shoulder of the giant.

  “Run!” boomed the man.

  Up the stairs they went. When they reached the top, Robert dared open his eyes. The big man had swung around to check behind him, and as he did, Robert saw ten more soldiers blocking the way. They were not in a frantic hurry, nor did they look overly worried. They were arrayed in a diamond shape, with those at the back wielding long polearms while the front men carried shields and maces.

  “Give ‘em up,” one of the macemen shouted.

  “Where’s the gate?” the woman asked.

  “Follow me,” the smaller man said. “As long as they don’t know…”

  The three rushed down the hall toward the defensive formation, then jutted right. Robert was baffled. They approached a dead end of solid stone. The shadows across it were thick. The smaller man jumped at the wall, and just as Robert wondered what gymnastic trick he planned to perform, he slipped right through as if the wall were air. The girl followed next. Hope dared kindle in the old man’s breast.

  As the guards shouted behind them, Robert and his giant leapt through the shadows of the wall. Cool fresh air blew across Robert’s skin, and feeling it, he gasped.

  “Let’s take him home,” the woman said. Robert tried to smile at her, but the comfort of clean lungs was too much for him.

  He fell asleep, still slung across the giant’s shoulder.

  Given the mansion’s numerous closets, secret pathways, gardens and attic space, Aaron couldn’t have been happier with his new home. He’d spent the past few days lurking far more aimlessly than normal. Since the attempt on Aaron’s life, his father had not appointed a new teacher in weaponry, stealth, or politics. With little else to do, Aaron had begun picking random workers and stalking them. He’d watched fat Olivia slaving away at the ovens for nearly four hours before she noticed his presence. Deciding a busy, unskilled person like that was no fun, he moved up in difficulty. Senke had caught him in less than four minutes; Will in less than two.

  But Senke and Will were gone, as was Kayla, who he hadn’t worked up the courage to stalk yet. He’d discussed her with Senke plenty, blurting out how beautiful and skilled she was. Senke, the wily woman-lover that he was, had been more than sympathetic, though he’d also said the worst words in the world to Aaron: you’re too young. Worry about that when you’re older.

  With the king sending soldiers to kill him, Aaron thought older wasn’t a guarantee. He’d spent the last two hours hiding atop an old wardrobe. Floor planks opened up nearby to one of the many tunnels leading in and out of the mansion. Aaron had watched people come and go, observing their reactions as they stepped into the light. For a few, he’d even scratched the wood with his fingers or let out a quick cough. None had noticed. Aaron found
himself missing Senke even more.

  Aaron thought perhaps he should be in bed, but the Spider Guild was far more active at night than during the day. Far more active meant far more interesting, too. He wandered the hallway, listening for something to watch. Sometimes he’d catch several members of the guild gambling with dice, and he’d watch the twitches of their faces and the nervous movements of their hands. Aaron had gotten quite good at guessing who would win by the severity of their tells.

  As he wandered, he found his spirits dropping a little. He bypassed only a couple of men, all alone and looking almost annoyed at his presence. When he passed by the front door, Aaron crossed his arms and leaned against it. So bored, he sighed.

  Then he felt the door behind him shutter, as if someone was grabbing the iron handles on the other side but not yet pulling. Voices drifted inward. Aaron wasted no time. Before the door could creak open, he was already hidden in a shadowy corner.

  Senke entered first, and Aaron’s initial joy at seeing him was tempered by the deep scowl across his face. Kayla followed. There was blood on their clothes, and numerous cuts across their bodies. Most might have cried out at the sight, but Aaron’s initial reaction was instead to sink further into the darkness and watch with a mixture of curiosity and fear.

  Will entered, an old man held in his arms. It took a moment before Aaron realized who it was: Robert Haern, the kindly teacher that had risked his life to help him escape the soldiers. His face was thinner, his hair dirtier, but enough of the man remained to clearly identify him. Aaron felt an initial inclination to reveal his presence, but he fought it down. They had entered the front door. No one was permitted to use the front door.

  “He still with us?” Kayla asked, gingerly touching a gash on her forehead with her fingertips.

  “He lives,” Will said. “His sleep is deep.”

  “We’ll let Thren wake him up,” Senke said as he ducked his head outside, looked about, and then shut the door. “Perhaps during his questioning he’ll forget the fact that we walked through the front gate and door with the whole world watching.”