Tylar cradled his weeping wound with his other hand. Blood pooled in his palm. Tylar smeared his hands together, coating his fingers in wet crimson. He reached out to the smoky column and throttled it with his hands.
He expected his fingers to pass harmlessly through the smoke again. But shadow gained substance under his bloody palms.
It felt leathery, yet warm.
From his fingertips, a crackling rush of cold flames burst forth. The wildfire flushed out and over the naethryn’s form. In a heartbeat, it reached the tip of its muzzle and rebounded back. On its return, the daemon’s form vanished, burned away by the retreating fire. The flow of fire fled back along the umbilicus, back over his hands.
Tylar took a hurried breath as the rebound struck him in the chest. A mule kick. He was knocked against the alley wall. A flash of whiteness blinded him, then winked out. The alleyway lay in full shadow again. Darker than a moment ago.
Rogger searched the shadows for the daemon, making sure it was gone. “That’s better. I was sure one of those smoky wings was going to brush through and melt the bones from my body.” The thief shuddered.
By the wall, Tylar straightened both his legs and his back. He stared at his arms. Hale once again.
Rogger motioned to him. “Let’s get moving. Best keep to the shadows and we should be safe.”
His words immediately proved false.
From the shadows at either end of the alley, black shapes folded out of darkness. A dozen. Cloaked, swords in hand. Shadowknights all.
Tylar backed into Rogger. Another trap.
The leader of the knights stepped forth, plainly fearless, sword still sheathed. A mountain of shadow. He was too tall and too wide to be Darjon. His eyes glowed with Grace, swinging from Tylar to the thief.
“Again in trouble, Master Rogger?” The gruff voice, though muffled by masklin, could not be mistaken. “Why is it that your plans always go astray?”
Rogger grinned through his red beard. “We’re out of the dungeons, are we not? I count that an improvement.”
Tylar glanced between thief and knight.
“Here stands the other part of my original plan,” Rogger said as introduction, turning back to Tylar. “If Lord Balger had played along, these knights were to have been your border escorts from Foulsham Dell to Tashijan, in service to our cause. Now it seems they must be our rescuers, too.”
The knight bowed. “Your handmaiden brought us rumors of Balger’s intent to keep the godslayer imprisoned here. It seems ol’ Balger speaks too freely among his wenches.”
Tylar sensed the flow of hidden forces at work here. He eyed the tall knight. The last time he saw the man, his face had been blackened by ash, as was the manner of the Black Flaggers. In fact, he was the leader of the Black Flaggers. Krevan the Merciless. Now he had replaced ash for blessed masklin. The tattooed stripes of his former life as a Shadowknight were plain.
Tylar remembered Rogger’s earlier words about the man. Not every knight breaks his vow… Some simply walk away.
Tylar faced the knight-turned-pirate. “How are you here?”
Krevan shifted, stirring shadows like oil. “We don’t have much time for such tales. Suffice it to say, we will get you to Tashijan. Our cloaks will help hide you. We have horses waiting in Fen Widdlesham.”
Tylar refused to budge. “Why… why are you helping? What has all this to do with errant knights and the Black Flaggers?”
Krevan’s masked features were unreadable, but his words grew frosty. “All of Myrillia is in danger. It has been for a long time, out in the fringes, where few but the low know. I had thought never to don cloak and sword again, but some duties surpass personal desire.”
“What do you mean by-?”
Rogger touched Tylar’s shoulder. “Leave it be for now, Tylar.”
Something silent passed between the elder knight and thief.
“You’ve not told him,” Krevan said.
Rogger shook his head. “It was not my place.”
Eyes narrowed above the masklin, pinching the black stripes tighter. “I bore a name before earning the title Krevan the Merciless. A knight’s name. I was once called Raven ser Kay.”
Tylar glanced to the thief in disbelief, but only found confirmation there. “The Raven Knight?”
Krevan swung away. “We must go.”
“But Raven ser Kay died over three centuries ago,” Tylar mumbled.
Rogger stood at Tylar’s side, watching the knight disappear into shadow. “Yes… yes, he did.”
14
Dart knelt on a small goose-down pillow and slowly unrolled the linen scarf across the stone floor. She then placed the small wyrmwood box onto its center. All the while, she felt the two pairs of eyes scrutinizing her every move.
Matron Shashyl stood with her hands folded behind her back, her lips pursed as she oversaw Dart’s preparation for her first bloodletting.
Lord Chrism merely sat upon a chair, his face turned toward the open window of his chamber. He smelled of hay and freshly turned soil. His hair was oiled and combed straight back, making his green eyes seem larger, shining brighter than the afternoon sunlight.
With trembling fingers, Dart opened the small wyrmwood box. Lord Chrism’s sigil was inlaid in gold on the lid. Inside, brown velvet protected the contents: a line of silver instruments, a ribbon of tightly braided silk, and a fresh repostilary. The crystal receptacle had been blown by the glass artisans only two days previous. Dart had toured the Guild’s shops across the courtyard and watched this very repostilary being crafted.
Her first.
“This will be a full draw,” Matron Shashyl said. “So which lancet will you choose?”
It was not a difficult question. Shashyl had schooled her vigorously over the past two days.
Dart reached and pointed to the leaf-shaped lancet. To create a flow rich enough to fill an empty repostilary to the brim, she would need the largest of the silver blades. It was filigreed with gold inlay, again the sigil of Chrism. Dart knew it was an ancient instrument, dating back to the second millennia following the Sundering. Yet the tool was maintained in such delicate fashion that the silver shone without a single pox of tarnish. Its honed edge looked sharp enough to slice through darkness itself, its tipped point so fine it was hard to discern the end of the lancet without squinting.
“Very good,” the matron said. “Let us not keep our Lord of the loam waiting any longer.”
Chrism sighed with a ghost of a smile, his attention drawn back upon student and teacher. “Mayhap, dear matron, you should leave my Hand and I alone for this first bleeding.”
“But, my Lord, she is-”
The garrulous old woman was silenced with the lifting of a single finger. “She’ll do fine,” Chrism said in consolation. “This is a private time between god and Hand.”
Matron Shashyl quickly bowed, then retreated toward the exit to Lord Chrism’s chambers.
Dart kept her eyes upon the floor, upon the spread of her tools. She found it hard to breathe, as if the air had gone suddenly too thick. Pupp lay on the stones, his stumped tail wagging slowly. His fiery eyes were fixed upon the tools, like a dog eyeing a soupbone. She had warned him off with a firm gesture when she first knelt down.
Chrism stirred in his chair by the window. “As much as the good matron may press upon you the import and weight of your duty, it is truly a matter of no great concern.”
Dart glanced up at him. His eyes shone with emerald Grace, framed in soft brown curls, a slight stubble of
