Shadow's master

Svart held out his hands. “Better to go now. Guide is very busy. Won't take long.”

Caim turned away as he swung his cloak around his shoulders and pulled on his gloves. The shadows whispered in the corners, watching it all. Svart just smiled and nodded several times as they walked to the door.

Outside, it was dark even though the time was about a candlemark past what should have been dawn. Not completely dark. The sky was more gray-black than midnight dark, but still it felt strange not to see the sun coming up. The streets were deserted except for a few people slugging through the muddy snow. Svart lit a torch from a firepot by the door and started down the lane.

“How you like our northern weather?” the Northman asked with a chuckle. His breath filled the air with jets of steam.

Caim pulled up his collar. “Does it ever get warm up here?”

“This is very warm for us. Two moon ago, a man froze to death in these street.” He shrugged. “South man like you. Not used to the cold.”

Caim stepped around an ice puddle in the middle of the street. “Is it true the sun never comes out in this land?”

The Northman shook his head and made his short beard wiggle back and forth. “No. No sun. Always dark.”

“But it wasn't always like that, huh?”

Svart's voice dropped to a confidential murmur. “Best not to talk of such things, my friend. We have a saying here: ‘The Dark has eyes.’”

Caim scanned the buildings lining the street. He hadn't expected a real answer, but the Northman's hushed admonition surprised him. Perhaps it shouldn't have. The Eregoths lived in fear, too, and they weren't living under a constant reminder of the Shadow's influence.

At first, Caim thought Svart was taking him to the one of the larger buildings at the village center, but the Northman led him around a collection of fenced pastures filled with livestock and carts, into an area of narrower streets. Caim could tell they'd entered the lower section of the settlement by the condition of the shacks they passed and the general atmosphere. Every town and city had a slum, even if they didn't call it such, a place where the dregs could eke out their lives away from the palaces of the mighty.

Svart turned down a narrow alley between two long, low buildings that looked like storehouses. There weren't many people around this far from the trading paddocks. Caim caught up with the Northman beside a closed door.

“Hell of a place for a meeting,” Caim said.

“He does not like crowds.” Svart lifted the handle. “This is more quiet. You understand?”

I think I do. Caim resisted the urge to reach for his knives as Svart opened the door. This whole escapade had seemed too convenient from the start. He'd been through similar situations before. All the predators came sniffing around when you're new in town. He wasn't eager to go through it again, but the impatient look on Svart's face convinced him to play his part for a little longer.

Caim got a glimpse of a long, empty interior before Svart extinguished his torch into a snowbank, plunging them into near-absolute darkness. Or so the Northman must have assumed as he muttered for Caim to watch his step, but Caim's night vision adjusted quick enough. The building was some kind of storage house, mostly vacant now except for a few wooden crates. A musty odor rose from the scuffed floorboards. Caim discerned a figure standing near the center of the floor. He was a “proper” Northman, as tall as Dray or Aemon, wearing a hide jerkin over a thick woolen shirt. Caim couldn't tell if the man was armed. He waited to see how they were going to run the game. Would they play their roles for a little longer, or go right to making threats?

“Granmar,” Svart called out. “Cuvo der skipa?”

“Ja.” The stranger lifted his arm and opened the shutter of a lantern. Caim blinked as a shaft of bright light struck his eyes.

“Ah. There you are.” Svart turned to Caim. “This is guide. Very good.”

The man nodded, but didn't come any closer. “I am Granmar.”

His accent was so thick Caim barely understood even those simple words. And it was hard to get a good look at him with the lantern shining in his eyes. Caim handed Svart his fee, and caught a hint of movement on the far side of the room near a stack of crates. “Can you take me north?”

“North. East. West,” the man replied. “I can take.”

Kit appeared beside Caim and wrapped her immaterial hands around his upper arm. “So you know there's eight of them. Right, love?”

Caim swallowed the smile that had been threatening to play across his lips. He'd only counted four. He was losing his touch. “Care to point them out?” he whispered under his breath.

She didn't have to bother as seven lanky shapes emerged from their hiding places. All big men, two of them bigger than Malig. That was a concern. He told his muscles to relax. With the light shining in his eyes, they had to assume he couldn't see them yet. He didn't do anything to disabuse them of that notion.

Kit floated around to his other side. “The second one from the right has a bad knee.”

Caim looked, but didn't move his head. “Which one?”

“The second from the-”

“Which knee?”

Granmar held the lantern a little higher. “You bring silver?”

Caim looked over his shoulder as the door creaked behind him. Svart was gone. He sighed. Enough games. He had two options, fight or capitulate. He untied his purse and held it up. “Right here.”

Granmar approached with lumbering strides. Caim waited in a casual stance, feet spread shoulder-width apart, right arm down by his side, head tilted slightly to the left as if bored. He was almost convinced the Northman meant to deal honestly, but then he spotted a gleam of metal in the guide's off-hand. A knife held against his thigh. At least an eight-inch blade, probably single-edged with a triangular point. Caim shifted his weight a little more onto his left foot. When Granmar started to raise the hidden knife, Caim twisted at the hips while drawing his seax and slashing upward in the same movement. Granmar stepped back, his eyes wide under scraggly brows. The lantern dropped as he pressed his hand to the deep cut slicing him open from navel to collarbone. Glass shattered, but Caim was already moving as darkness smothered the room. The Northman with the bad knee was the next to fall, kicked so he would topple sideways, and then cut across his abdomen.

Another Northman swung a long club that looked like a sheared-off fence post. Caim dipped in behind the swing and stabbed the Northman in the thigh before he could bring the cudgel back around. Instead of falling back, the man stepped up closer. It would have been a simple thing for Caim to plunge both knives into the northerner's unprotected belly and rip him open, but he hesitated. Big hands grabbed him around the neck from behind. The wooden post crashed into his stomach, and Caim gasped as the breath rushed from his lungs. A sharp point dug into the back of his shoulder. Caim dipped his chin and spun out of the grasp of the rough fingers gouging his throat. His knives lashed out, and the Northman behind him fell to his knees, his slippery entrails spilling to the floor.

Caim crouched under another swing of a club. The Northmen could see better in the dark than he anticipated, but just like the fight against the Suete, he moved too fast for them to catch. A vicious, rusty shank stabbed at him. Caim knocked the thrust aside and ran the tip of his suete knife up the Northman's arm, splitting the sleeve of his wooly coat and tearing a deep gouge in the skin underneath. As his enemy retreated, making room for the others, Caim maneuvered back toward the exit.

He was almost to the door when a burst of light exploded behind his eyes, accompanied by a blinding headache. Caim put out his left hand as his balance wavered. It felt like he'd taken a blow to the head, but he didn't recall the impact.

Caim reversed his grip on both knives as his vision cleared. Pushing away from the wall, he moved like black quicksilver through the warehouse. Blood dripped from his blades, coated his gloves. Twice he evaded blows that he had been certain would connect. The Northmen fell back from his onslaught. He felt the shadows creeping along the ceiling, huddled in the eaves, hungry to get into the action. Finally he gave in. Come on, you little bastards. Get a taste.

An ice-cold pain ripped through Caim's chest. His breath froze in his lungs. Unable to move, Caim watched the advancing Northmen. Their weapons rose up. Just another couple steps would bring them within range. Caim fought to break through the sudden paralysis. Answer me, damn you! Come and-