Darkblade Justice: An Epic Fantasy Murder Mystery (Hero of Darkness Book 7) Page 7

  Ria smiled, genuine this time. “There’s the Ilanna I know and love.”

  Chapter Eight

  The Hunter smiled as he pulled himself up onto the roof of a nearby mansion and felt the first blast of late afternoon wind on his face.

  It has been too long, he thought.

  During his days as assassin of Voramis, he’d spent most nights traveling his own personal highway on the city rooftops. He’d come to love heights—not just for the breathtaking panoramic views, but for the silence and absence of smells. No one could ever accuse Voramis of being a sweet-smelling city, so he’d always appreciated a chance to escape the myriad foul odors that clogged the streets of the Beggar’s Quarter or the rank perfumes of the noblemen of Upper Voramis.

  But now, since his return from Enarium, he’d spent far less time on the rooftops and far more time enclosed in stuffy rooms with people like Father Reverentus and Graeme.

  He sprinted along the rooftop and hurled himself into the air with all the force in his powerful legs. He sailed for a full fifteen paces to land lightly on a nearby mansion rooftop, tucking into a roll to absorb the impact. It felt wonderful to stretch his muscles and work out the kinks of sitting in an enclosed carriage for the ten-day trip from Voramis.

  As he ran, he consulted his mental map of the city’s layout. His mansion in The Gardens stood near Old Praamis, the former heart of the city and the place where Praamis’ richest aristocrats lived in estates both vast and ancient. Old Praamis occupied a quarter of the modern city of Praamis, and a staggering amount of the city’s wealth passed through the hands of the sixty-some noble families occupying the land.

  Amidst it all, stood the Black Spire, the monolithic tower at the dead center of the original city. The structure resembled an obsidian dagger thrust into the belly of the sky, its heights a challenge to even the Hunter. He’d always wanted to tackle it—the view from the tower’s rooftop had to be breathtaking, comparable to the views from Lord Apus’ tower in Malandria, the twin temples in Kara-ket, and the uppermost room in the Illumina at the heart of Enarium.

  But his steps led away from Old Praamis, instead in the direction of Vendor’s Block, a series of sprawling open-air and enclosed marketplaces where most business in Praamis occurred. He expected to find the Night Guild there. The mansions of the nobility would doubtless hide more of the Guild’s sins—either the buildings used for the Guild’s trafficking like the Bloody Hand in Voramis, or nobles under the Guild’s thumb—but he had a far better chance of finding the criminals he sought in the sort of places where they worked. Places like the markets, the riverside docks, or the Ward of Refuge.

  He thrust a hand in his pocket to ensure the blackmail note and the brown thread remained tucked safely away. Right now, they were the only clues linking him to the murderer.

  If only the boy had torn a bit more of his killer’s robe. Another of the side effects of the Hunter’s Bucelarii heritage gave him the ability to find people. He didn’t quite understand how it worked—like so many of the Serenii’s other creations, the workings of his dagger were a mystery to him—but it sufficed to know that his ritual of seeking connected Soulhunger to the heart of his target. However, he needed more than a single thread to make the ritual work.

  Looks like I’m going to have to do this the old-fashioned way. He shot a glance up at the sun. He had at least three or four hours of light left, and he could cover a lot of ground in that time. On the rooftops, he could take the shortest, most direct route to his location. Those on the ground below had to travel between and around buildings, yet their obstacles served as his stepping-stones, leading him to his destination more quickly.

  His eyes traveled over the rooftops ahead, scanning for the safest and easiest routes to cross. To his surprise, he found wooden planks, ropes, and even occasional hanging ladders joining the rooftops. Someone—the Night Guild, undoubtedly—had invested a surprising amount of time and resources into building a path to make traversing the city easier.

  A damn good idea, too. The web of bridges, ladders, and walkways seemed to connect every building in the city, or at least the ones strong enough to support the weight of a man his size. Looks like the rooftops in Praamis get a bit more use than those in Voramis.

  The Bloody Hand had avoided the rooftops out of fear of the mysterious Hunter of Voramis—fear he’d paid good coin to encourage. But things worked a bit different here in Praamis.

  He contemplated descending to the city streets, but discarded the idea a second later. He hadn’t yet overcome his dislike of crowds, people packed so tightly together that he couldn’t find a quick avenue of escape. And, reaching the busiest areas of Praamis, those areas most likely to be a hub for crime, would take far longer on the ground.

  I’ll just have to keep an eye out for any of the Night Guild up here. The rooftops offered a clear line of sight in all directions; he simply needed to be alert for any enemies ahead or around him, and he could get out of sight behind a chimney, duck into the shadow of a sloped roof, or drop to the streets.

  He chose to head to Old Town Market. That was where the body had been found, so it seemed as good a place to start hunting the Night Guild as any.

  Where there are people with money to spend, there are pickpockets waiting to lift their coin.

  He smiled at the memory of his encounter with Evren, the thief that had possessed the daring and quick fingers to steal his purse in the city of Vothmot. Evren had helped him get into the Master’s Temple, which led to his discoveries in the Vault of Stars. He’d let the young thief accompany him into the Empty Mountains and Evren had proven instrumental in finding the way to Enarium. On his return to Voramis, he’d offered the young man a chance to join his mission to hunt down demons, and Evren had accepted. Over the last three years, the Hunter had been impressed by Evren’s resourcefulness, ingenuity, and determination.

  And he’s not bad with his fists, either. The story behind Evren’s skill at combat was a foul one, rank with abuse and torments—which should never have existed in the temple of Kiro, the Master, god of virtue and nobility. Evren had almost seemed relieved to hear that no such god had ever existed, and he’d thrown himself into the Hunter’s mission eagerly.

  So eagerly, in fact, it was almost impossible to stop him from coming to Praamis. At seventeen, Evren had proven as stubborn and headstrong as the Hunter. Finally, the Hunter had resorted to using Hailen, the boy Evren had come to treat as a younger brother, as an excuse to keep the young thief in Voramis.

  “Keep an eye on him,” the Hunter had said. “His education with the Beggar Priests will do him good, but I don’t trust them fully, not yet.”

  “You don’t need to tell me twice.” Evren’s face had clouded at the mention of the word “priests”. “He’ll be safe, I promise.”

  As always, thoughts of Evren and Hailen sent the Hunter’s mind wandering toward Jaia. My daughter. Even three years later, the words still sounded strange in his mind. He’d learned of her existence in Enarium, only to discover that she had been freed from her prison long before his arrival. She was out there, somewhere, roaming Einan, wearing a face he’d never seen and bearing a name he might not know.

  He’d tried to find her, yet every time was confronted by the inevitable question: How? He had no idea when she’d left Enarium—five years, fifty, even five hundred, all were possible given the Bucelarii’s long lifespan—or where she’d gone. He’d had Graeme send out queries to his Hidden Circle contacts around Einan, yet they’d had little more than her name to go on.

  The time would come, and soon, that he’d dedicate his efforts to finding her. But not yet. The impossible would have to wait; he needed to focus on dealing with the problem he could solve.

  The Hunter dropped onto a lower rooftop, sprinted across the clay tiles, and leapt high into the air. His fingers dug into the rough surface of a stone wall, cracking the masonry, and he hauled himself quickly up onto the roof. A plank bridge gave him easy access to the next buildi
ng, which was connected to another structure by a tightrope.

  He couldn’t help feeling impressed by the Night Guild’s construction. It’s like a damned highway up here, he thought. If the network extended throughout the city, it would cut travel time significantly.

  His eyes fell on the bright-colored stalls of Old Town Market in the distance. He’d reach it in less than a minute—the crossing had taken a third of the time his carriage had required to get from the marketplace to The Gardens.

  He paused on a rooftop overlooking Old Town Market, crouched in the shadow of a chimney, and scanned the crowd below. Thieves were easy to spot if you knew what to look for. They tended to stay in one spot until they found their mark, then moved toward the target at a slow, purposeful pace. At the last moment, they’d stumble against the mark—a perfect cover to slice purse strings or snatch a wallet—and slither away through the crowd. Never hurrying or running, for that drew attention, but at a casual pace until they were clear. Inevitably, one of their comrades would be waiting nearby for a hand-off.

  Minutes ticked by as the Hunter studied the crowd. His eyes roamed the edges, but he found no men, women, or children that fit the profile of a pickpocket or thief.

  Decades as an assassin had taught him patience, but right now, he chafed with impatience to return to hunting the Abiarazi he’d come to Praamis to find.

  A question popped into his mind. What if the demon’s ruling the Night Guild? It wasn’t a great stretch—two demons had commanded the Bloody Hand in Voramis, and it fit the demons’ vicious, brutal nature to take control of criminals. All the more reason to get my hands on someone in the Night Guild and put them to the question.

  Thoughts of the Abiarazi made him reach instinctively for the twin iron daggers, only to remember he no longer carried them. The blades had accompanied him on his journey from Voramis, across Einan, and finally to Enarium. He couldn’t help feeling their absence when he knew he faced the threat of a demon.

  Iron was poisonous to demonic blood, both Abiarazi and their Bucelarii offspring. It could kill them slowly, rot their bodies from the inside out. He’d nearly died from something as simple as an iron pin stabbed into his back, though demons took a lot more iron to kill. He’d needed both daggers to put an end to the resilient Abiarazi—one to slow their natural healing abilities, the other to still their hearts or sever their heads.

  Once, he’d believed they belonged to the god called the Swordsman, forged from the fragments of the sword used to destroy the evil god Kharna. The truth, he’d learned in Enarium, was far different. They might have been shaped into daggers, but they were in fact keys created by the ancient Serenii to activate the magical mechanisms of the Lost City. He’d left them in Voramis, in the care of Father Reverentus. He could always reclaim them once he’d located and captured the Abiarazi.

  The Hunter smiled at the memory of the old priest’s apoplectic expression as he’d listened to the story of Enarium, the Serenii, and the Devourer of Worlds. He’d feared Father Reverentus would keel over, yet the Beggar Priest had surprised him by taking the information in stride.

  It had taken the priest time, but he’d come to accept the truth of the religion and gods he’d dedicated his life to. He had been the one to champion the Hunter’s cause—hunting down demons to drag back to Enarium in order to feed Kharna in his struggle against the Devourer of Worlds. The other Cambionari hadn’t yet acclimated to the new order of things, but at least the Hunter no longer had to worry about being hunted by the secret order of Beggar Priests.

  That’s a step in the right direction, I suppose.

  He still carried the burden of his vow to Kharna. He’d sworn to find a way to collect enough life energy to seal the rift against the Devourer. He had four hundred and ninety-seven years until the next Withering, when the power of Enarium could be harnessed. The last three years had felt like wading through mud as he tried to figure out how to keep his word.

  At least I’m not in the fight alone. The thought lifted his spirit every time.

  Hailen had proven instrumental in the battle against both the Abiarazi and the Devourer of Worlds. He was Melechha, pure-blood descendant of the Serenii, and his blood could activate the Serenii mechanisms that would save the world.

  Evren had signed on without hesitation. Young, headstrong, and eager to leave the city that held so many unpleasant memories, he’d welcomed the chance for adventure—even if the adventure meant hunting demons no one knew existed.

  For the last three years, the Hunter had trained both Hailen and Evren in the ways of battle and combat. Beside him throughout it all had been Kiara.

  Kiara, once known as Celicia, the Fourth of the Bloody Hand before the Hunter destroyed the criminal enterprise, had risked her life to protect Hailen. She had gladly joined the Hunter’s mission—“Never did care much for the gods, anyway,” she’d told the Hunter when he explained the truth of the Serenii.

  He’d spent a lot of time trying to sort out his feelings for Kiara, but ultimately decided that the situation was too complex to worry about. His wife, Taiana, lay trapped in Enarium, waiting to be freed at the next Withering. That day was still hundreds of years in the future, but Kiara added a brightness to the Hunter’s here and now. He could never stop loving Taiana, yet he’d found room in his heart for Kiara, just as he had with Hailen and, strange as it felt to admit it, Evren.

  There was so much to be done, and just the four of them to do it—for now, at least, until he could find more allies. The Cambionari were his best option. They had trained to hunt Bucelarii, which meant they could face a demon without being ripped to pieces. But to convince them, he had to show them just what they were up against.

  That meant finding the demon in Praamis and hauling it back to Voramis in chains. And where children are being murdered, there’s likely to be a demon.

  He tensed as his sensitive ears caught a hint of sound behind him, on the next rooftop over. His nostrils picked up the smell of steel, leather armor, and an edge of coriander seed. The scent of a fighter.

  Only one kind of fighter would be up here on Night Guild turf.

  He stood and turned to face the approaching figure. It was a man, broad of shoulder, with two scars running down his right cheek. He wore simple robes, yet the Hunter’s keen eyes caught the green trim along the hems. The fading afternoon sunlight glinted off the blade of the sword in his hand.

  The man stopped. “This is Night Guild turf.” The man’s gravelly voice rang with menace, and he pointed his sword at the Hunter’s chest. “Leave or die.”

  The Hunter’s face broke into a broad smile. Perfect.

  Chapter Nine

  Sunset colors bathed the sky as Ilanna approached the run-down building that concealed the secret entrance into the Night Guild. She cast one last longing glance over her shoulder, drinking in the hues of purple, gold, and brilliant pink splashed across the sky, then stepped into the darkened building.

  She didn’t need light to traverse the tunnels toward the Night Guild—she’d prowled these hard-packed earth corridors thousands of times over the last twenty-odd years. The darkness hid the scowl that twisted her face as she pondered what she’d learned today.

  What I haven’t learned, more like. A derisive snort escaped her lips. Rilmine had better have something useful for me, else the entire day has been wasted effort.

  She’d come no closer to finding the killer. Her only discovery had been that no one seemed to know where Chantelle had been the night of her murder. That information served her about as much as a one-fingered flautist.

  A sense of urgency thrummed within her chest as she hurried toward the lighted section of tunnels occupied by the Night Guild. Instead of directing her steps to her own chambers, she headed straight for House Scorpion. She didn’t even bother to knock on the House’s double doors, simply opened the strange lock—twin steel scorpion claws that had to be opened by pushing one down and one up—and strode in.

  The Nest, House Scorpion�
��s main room, held the tools of the Scorpion’s trade: dozens of long tables cluttered with an assortment of glass vials, bottles, vases, and other containers; metallic tools of all shapes and sizes, and hundreds of jars, crates, and boxes filled with powders and liquids of every conceivable hue. A smith’s furnace blazed at the far end of the Nest. As always, Ilanna allowed her eyes to roam over the colorful stains on the earthen floors and walls, entertaining herself by picturing how those particular experiments had gone wrong.

  She gave a polite nod to the Scorpion Journeymen and apprentices working in the Nest, but didn’t slow to greet them. Her confident stride led her through the high-vaulted chamber, down a short tunnel, and into the chamber reserved for Journeyman Rilmine’s strange research. As ever, the potent smell of chemicals struck like a physical blow. When she laid eyes on the small body on the table, her stomach nearly emptied then and there.

  Journeyman Rilmine’s wicked tools had laid open Arashi’s corpse, a Y-shaped incision running from the boy’s shoulders across his chest and down to his waist. Thick flaps of skin held the body’s chest cavity open, exposing sawed-through ribs and bloody guts beneath.

  With a supreme effort of will, Ilanna shoved down her distaste. “Tell me you have something useful,” she snapped.

  Journeyman Rilmine straightened from his examination of the dead Fox apprentice. “I believe I do, Guild Massster.” Half of his face rose into a grin. “In fact, it’sss possible I have a few sssomethingsss ussseful.”

  Ilanna ground her teeth at the irritating sibilance of his words. “Show me.”

  “Look here.” The hairless, pale Rilmine pointed to the Fox’s forehead. “Onccce I removed the plassster, I found thessse.”