Shadow's master

Lord Malphas stood beside the chromatic flames, ebon sparks raining from his fingers. A section of the cavern wall sloughed off and crumbled to the floor. The gateway writhed and wriggled as if agitated by the combat. Once again, Caim's mother had slipped deeper into its black embrace.

“Is that it?” Caim climbed to his feet. He grimaced as the words passed his lips, but he couldn't help himself. “I've crossed half the world to find this place, and this.” He used his suete to scrape some pieces of burned leather from his shoulder. “This is the best you can do?”

Lord Malphas turned to the gateway. The void pulsed again, and Caim braced himself for another burst of dark energy. Instead, something emerged from the blackness. It was a hand, as black as the gateway itself, followed by an arm and shoulder. Caim swallowed a curse as a man-shaped thing slunk out of the gateway, slipping past his mother, to stand on the cavern floor. Its face twisted into a visage that he remembered from a long time ago.

Dalros Vicencho.

With a whining growl, the merchant's doppelganger lurched toward Caim with a black dagger in its hand. Caim set himself to meet the threat, but more shapes were emerging from the gateway. Like the Dalros shade, they took on the resemblances of people he'd known. Duke Reinard of Ostergoth. Liram Kornfelsh. Even Edric Klapsur, one of the men he'd killed in Freehold when he was little more than a boy. A cold finger scratched down Caim's spine when he realized they weren't just men he'd known. They were men he had killed, all returned like revenants from the grave.

Caim was jarred from his horror by a sweeping strike from Dalros. Caim blocked the dagger with his sword and stepped in close to drive his suete knife into the creature's paunchy stomach. The knife sunk in easily, but the doppelganger didn't react like a man who'd been stabbed. Instead, it grabbed for his face with its other hand. Caim jumped back, and narrowly missed being spitted on Duke Reinard's black rapier. Caim knocked the thin sword aside, and ducked a clubbing from the duke's young, dead son. Robert?

The cavern drew dark as the murderous shades surrounded Caim. He tried to keep them at bay, deflecting their attacks and staying a step ahead of them, but they were so many. Sooner or later he would miss a block, and then it would be all over. Beyond their sooty shoulders, Lord Malphas watched with a look of cool satisfaction.

Gritting his teeth in frustration, Caim abandoned his defensive posture and lashed out. The shade of Melbin Westering, second-rate loan shark, paid no mind to the suete knife that stabbed into his thigh, but one slash of the black sword separated the moneylender's head from his shoulders and he collapsed in a pool of black ooze. A small tingle ran up the hilt of the sword, and Caim smiled.

The shades fell one by one, sloshing their liquefied remains on the cavern floor. When the last one had been dispatched, Caim stood alone. Panting and covered in ooze, but alive.

Standing before the gateway, Lord Malphas no longer smiled. His eyes bulged like he'd eaten something rotten. Caim shook the gore from his weapons and started to advance, but hesitated when the shadow noble staggered. A wet cracking sound echoed through the cave, and a drop of black ichor dripped from Malphas's left eye.

Caim imagined a spot beside the nobleman, but something went wrong when he tried to shadow-jump. The floor dropped out from under his feet. He landed hard on his tailbone and rolled over, biting back the pain. Malphas loomed over him, ribbons of shadow shooting out from his hands like long, black whips.

Caim lunged, though his tortured muscles cried out in agony. His black sword pierced Malphas's stomach and sunk half the length of the blade. Caim started to relax, until he looked into his enemy's eyes. They showed no pain or fear of death, only infinite contempt.

With a jerk of his arms, Lord Malphas looped his tentacles around Caim in an iron embrace. Caim shouted aloud as the ebon cords sliced through his protective layer of shadows and into his flesh. Blood poured down his legs.

A rapturous hiss echoed from Malphas's open mouth. Caim watched, horrified, as the skin peeled away from the noble's face and neck, revealing a rippling blackness underneath.

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

A curtain of smoke swept over Josey, making her eyes water and filling her lungs when she tried to breathe. Coughing into her sleeve, she tried to find her battle standards. Harsh shouts and pain-filled cries echoed from all directions. A wobbling arrow flew perilously close as she looked around, reminding her that she wore no armor or helm.

This is foolish. I can't make any difference here. True, she had no weapons save for a pair of knives, and she wasn't likely to turn the tide with her skill at arms. But she had a voice.

“Nimea!” she shouted. “To me!”

Her voice was swallowed by the raucous din and the smoke, but Josey stood up in her stirrups. “Nimea to your empress! Nimea to me!”

There was no answering call. But then a soldier in Nimean livery limped toward her through the mists. Another pikeman stumbled after him, followed by a trio of crossbowmen in scale-mail hauberks. As more soldiers appeared, they formed a ring around her. One of her bodyguards emerged from the smoke, holding the side of his head where blood leaked down in a steady trickle. Josey leaned down as he clutched her stirrup strap. His ear had been torn away, along with a goodly portion of the skin along that side of his head.

Josey looked to the nearest men. “Help him!”

“Majesty,” the bodyguard said. He was having trouble catching his breath. “Captain…Drathan. Must get you…away!”

“No. My place is here with you. We'll fight.”

Lightning reared up as an explosion rocked the ground. Josey couldn't see where it landed, but chunks of sod rained down on her little squad. She started to tell the bodyguard to seek assistance for his ear when a horn sounded nearby. Foreign voices rose beyond the veil of smoke. As Josey pulled her steed under control, there was a sound like a stick striking a tree. Then a flood of enemies emerged from the haze, screaming like demons.

Josey fought to keep her seat as her ring of defenders was driven back. A volley of arrows peppered the front rank of pikemen, and Josey almost swallowed her tongue. Alone atop her steed, dressed in a sky-blue riding jacket, she couldn't have made a more obvious target. Yet she rejected the urge to hug Lightning's neck. Her soldiers fought like heroes. Invaders fell around them, their bodies piling up in the bloody mire. When one of her men collapsed, another stepped into the gap. They suffered horrible wounds and kept battling, returning blow for blow. Josey forced herself to watch the carnage while she shouted orders. The pikemen stayed at the front. Her crossbowmen fired point-blank into the sea of enemies, cocking and loading their heavy weapons as fast as they were able. Stenches of death and blood swirled above the battlefield. They crept into Josey's throat and brought tears to her eyes, but she clutched to the hope that they could hold out, that the invaders would exhaust themselves and draw back. She was turning to her right flank when a turbulent wave of air crashed over her. She spun around in the saddle as Lightning floundered. Josey clung to the stallion's mane with both hands as he righted himself.

The world had fallen silent. Men opened their mouths, apparently shouting as they fought and died, but she heard nothing. Through the haze and Lightning's flying mane, a huge warrior in black armor strode into view. His greatsword sliced into the side of a pikeman and almost cut the man in half. More black-armored fighters charged from out of the mist. Her soldiers struggled, but they were too few. And the northerners were too fierce, battering her soldiers with massive hammers, swords, and axes. Josey looked around for reinforcements to fill the gap, but her voice failed her as the enemy commander emerged from the horde on his tall black horse.

Talus. Keegan had called him the Thunder Lord. He looked even more fearsome up close. His crimson armor made him look like a primal god of war bathed in blood. Trails of shadowy smoke rose from his eyes, which burned like smoldering coals in their cavernous sockets. Her soldiers fell back as he crashed into their faltering lines. Some turned and tried to flee, but there was nowhere to go. They were cut down from behind as the warlord's steed trampled over their bodies.

Josey didn't know what to do. All of a sudden the will to resist seemed too much effort. Where were her