Shadow's master

command. Resources that have been squandered and wasted in a fruitless campaign.”

“Wasted?” Oriax tried to rise to his feet, but the soldiers held him down. “I have won dozens of victories, captured many towns and fortresses. Virtually the whole of Einar is under my-”

Lord Malphas began to answer, but movement stirred on the throne. The crowd murmured as the Lord of Shadow leaned forward in his stony seat. The hall's ruddy light played across his oiled scalp and the long bridge of his nose. Bony shoulders shifted under his mantle of burgundy chased with silver and gold thread.

“Towns and fortresses?” The Shadow Lord's voice was measured, but it resounded through the hall. “You were charged with subjugating the human nations of Arnos and Hestria.”

“Master, I-”

Oriax flew back onto the floor and rolled over. A titter passed though the assembly, but no one spoke. Even Malphas stood silently, hands folded within his sleeves, but Balaam thought he saw a look of satisfaction cross the majordomo's face.

The Shadow Lord extended a finger. “You have failed, Lord Oriax. And the cost of your failure is death.”

Oriax climbed to his knees and dared to meet the Master's gaze. “I would gladly die for my empire and my Master. But grant me the final honor of a proper death as befits my station.”

“You dare to-,” Lord Malphas started to berate.

But the Shadow Lord nodded. “It is granted. Choose your executioner.”

Oriax craned his head, but none of the nobles would meet his gaze. The hall was silent. Then Balaam found himself stepping forward. “I will serve as your second, my lord.”

Eyes followed him as he crossed the floor. Balaam stopped before the dais and bowed. Then he drew his sword and turned to the kneeling lord. The soldiers stepped away.

Oriax closed his eyes, head bowed, as the kalishi sword lifted above his head. Balaam inhaled a deep breath and held it. His mind was still, his nerves calm. Yet, Deumas's words haunted him. This is not the empire we once knew.

Oriax nodded, and the blade fell.

Balaam stepped back. He used his cloak to clean his sword and returned it to the scabbard. Then he laid the cloak over the general's headless body. He stood there for a time as the body discorporated into fine gray ash.

“Balaam.”

He looked up. The hall was empty save for the two figures on the dais. Abraxus, the last Shadow Lord, stood up slowly and beckoned with a veiny hand. “Come. We have been waiting.”

As Balaam strode forward, he hoped Malphas would depart, but the majordomo remained at the Shadow Lord's side. Balaam concealed his disappointment as he went to one knee at the bottom of the steps. “Master.”

“Rise and tell me what you found in Liovard. Is my daughter dead?”

“Yes. The temple was in shambles.”

“It is as I feared, but I had to be sure. I cannot trust all that I hear anymore. How did she die?”

“It was the scion's doing, Master.”

Balaam obeyed with a full account of his investigation in Liovard. He would have gladly stopped before reporting Lady Sybelle's final moments in this world, but he was bound by duty. As he related her fateful last words, Abraxus slapped his thigh. His face was a gray mask.

Lord Malphas tsked. “A great loss to our cause, my lord. A tragedy beyond words. Shall I arrange the funereal rites for your beloved daughter?”

“My daughter.” Abraxus pursed his lips together. “A more wily creature was never born. If she'd had the opportunity, she would have usurped my throne long ago.”

“A lady of many…moods,” Malphas ventured. “Perhaps a muted affair. The city shall mourn her passing in silence, as befits the daughter of your mighty house.”

Balaam ignored the majordomo, understanding what his Master meant. “We should prepare.”

Abraxus met his eye with a jaundiced gaze. “Indeed. One who could overcome my beautiful Sybelle, even besotted and weakened as she had become, is a dangerous foe. I want you to find him. Find him and bring him here.”

Balaam exhaled as the command settled over his shoulders like an ill-fitting coat. “Master, is that the wisest course? An enemy as powerful as this one, it would be better to slay than capture him.”

The Shadow Lord looked up toward the arched ceiling, and Balaam bowed his head. He shouldn't have said anything. A weapon did not ask where it should be pointed; it only served the purpose for which it had been made.

“There are forces moving,” Abraxus said, “but I cannot see them. I can only sense them on the edges of my awareness, shadows within shadows….”

His voice trailed away, and he stood that way, saying nothing, for a span of many breaths, until Balaam wondered if he should say something. Then he remembered how long it had been since his Master had left this citadel. Years, perhaps decades. Balaam thought back to the early construction of Erebus, the army of slaves toiling on the wastes. Hundreds died each month, only to be replaced by others, and then by their children. But Abraxus had remained here since the laying of the first foundation. And now an entire city had grown up around the palace, even though their people were fewer with every passing year. A city in search of a people. Caught up in his own reverie, Balaam started when the Shadow Lord spoke again.

“We face a terrible question,” Abraxus said. “The crusade does not progress as we had hoped. We are losing ground on every side. It is no secret there has been trouble in the east, but with the loss of Eregoth…”

Not the loss of your daughter, Master?

“Pardon me,” Balaam said. “But perhaps if you took a hand personally. Just an appearance in the field would bolster-”

“No. My place is here, seeing to the completion of the citadel.”

“A wise policy,” Malphas murmured. “To control the campaign from a central location.”

Balaam said nothing as Abraxus continued. “But the Light is strong in this world. Our power diminishes with every passing year. We need the scion alive. Do you understand?”

Balaam bowed his head. He didn't understand, not fully, but he knew his duty. “It shall be as you command. I will find the scion and bring him here.”

“Good. Go at once.”

When Balaam looked up, the Shadow Lord and Malphas were gone. Balaam considered the black throne, and all the losses their people had suffered since coming to this realm. This is not the empire we once knew.

Balaam turned and departed.

CHAPTER SIX

“You okay, boss?” Aemon asked.

Sitting on his bed shirtless, Caim nodded as the needle pushed through the skin of his shoulder, and he tried to think about something else.

Dray came over carrying his gear and bedroll, all bundled up. “Fuck me! You got more scars than I ever seen.”

Caim looked down at his body. The scars were like a roadmap, tracing the violent history of his life. Knife wounds, punctures, burn marks, and enough stitch tracks to sew a fair-sized quilt. He couldn't remember how he'd gotten most of them. The fights and jobs all blended into a crimson fog.

Malig bit into an ice-pepper as he pointed to Caim's side. “Is that one from a spear?”

That one Caim remembered like it was yesterday. Carrying Josey over the side of the pier, the sudden pain like a mule kick in the back, and then the icy cold of the bay waters closing over them. “Crossbow.”

“Damn.”

When Aemon finished his amateur doctoring, Caim eased into his shirt and laced his jerkin over the top of it. The back was a little damp from the blood, but it would dry out on the road. “You three head out to the stables and