Fallen Blade 04 - Blade Reforged (29 page)

I was so prepared to see what I was expecting that it took three long beats and a
couple of blinks to see what was really there—a different slip of paper entirely.
I plucked it out with some concern, since it fit neither of the scenarios Devin and
I had set up—my own message untouched, or, a void left when he finally retrieved the
note. The drop was supposed to be for one-way communication only.

That’s odd,
sent Triss.

I don’t like it. Let’s get clear before we give this a read.

I agree.

I finally opened the note some minutes later, sitting atop a water tank on the roof
of a private tower on the edge of Highside. It held one sentence, “Scheroc says come
find me,” a safe enough message given that to the best of my knowledge there were
only three people in the entire city who knew both that Fei had a familiar and what
its name was. The other two being Harad and Fei herself. Conveniently, Fei’s office
wasn’t all that far from my current location. Fifteen minutes later I was knocking
quietly on her back window.

There was a sniff. “Aral.”

It wasn’t a question, but I answered it like one anyway, “Yes.”

The lights went out and the shutters swung wide. “It’s about damned time,” said a
voice from within. “I left that note three hours ago.”

“Good to see you, too.” I caught the window ledge and pulled myself inside.

Fei latched the shutters behind me, though she left the slats spread despite a slight
chill. The familiar shaped the mage, and Fei’s sense of smell was about a hundred
times better than any normal human’s. That was certainly part of why she’d taken a
corner office with big windows on both sides. She left the room dark, but enough moonlight
filtered in through the shutters for me to see her face.

“I’ve had Scheroc keeping an eye on things up at the palace and I think everything
is about to go straight into the shit.”

“What’s happened?”

“Well, ever since you told me about the Kitsune, I’ve tried to keep Scheroc out of
the parts of the palace where she seems likely to turn up.” Fei shook her head. “That’s
actually harder than you’d think. Scheroc is a dear little thing, but he doesn’t really
understand place in the same way that we do. Trying to tell him where he can and can’t
go gets a bit…dicey.”

I’d had some experience of that when I’d had to follow the little wind spirit to Fei
once upon a time. But that wasn’t
really to the point at the moment, so I merely cleared my throat questioningly.

“Sorry. The key thing is I’ve had to keep Scheroc away from the really royal parts
of the palace; the grand tower and surrounds, the Elite’s master chapter house, the
wing where the Lord Justicer stays with the other Crown officers.”

“Speaking of which, do you know why Vyan’s head isn’t hanging over the traitor’s gate?
I was sure it’d be up by the evening of the day I stabbed Thauvik on the bridge. But
nothing was heard from Vyan for a week, and then he was back out in the square making
official statements for the Crown as if nothing had happened. Maylien had her initial
go-between pull a rabbit run as soon as the assassination went south, and she hasn’t
been able to get another in close since. She’s lost two good people trying.”

“Can’t you guess?” asked Fei. “You’re the one who gave me most of the pieces I needed
to figure it out.”

“I’m too damned tired for games, Fei. Just tell me.”

“How about I give you the one piece I
didn’t
get from you, something Scheroc heard while flitting about in one of the servants’
quarters.”

“Fine.”

“Seems one of the footmen ruptured himself when the marble tub they were hauling up
to the Lord Justicer’s rooms slipped.”

“Oh.” That was very bad. Especially if it meant the king was starting to warm to Kitsune’s
idea of an undead crusade.

“Yes, it seems that Vyan has
risen
to the challenge of his king’s present needs.”

“What about the week he spent out of sight?”

“I have an idea,” replied Fei, “but it’s more an educated guess than anything solid.
I’ve been trying to learn more about the risen ever since you told me what Devin had
to say about Thauvik and the Son of Heaven. With the exception of that silly adventure
novel you mentioned, there’s balls-all about blood bathing in the Ismere’s collection.
But
when I told Harad what I wanted to know, he dragged out a few stories that aren’t
in any of his books.”

“And?”

“And, some of the most powerful restless dead go into a sort of dormant state while
they transition, like a caterpillar turning into a moth. Normally, the risen don’t,
or don’t for long, but Harad thought there might be something special about this version
of the curse. Something that makes them smarter and nastier. If so, they might well
spend longer in the state between dead and undead, and…”

Fei suddenly lifted her head and sniffed the air like a hound catching a scent. “Shit.”

“What is it?” I asked.

“The wind’s shifting, and not in a natural way.”

A moment later, I felt the change as a cold breeze suddenly came in from her palace-side
window.

“Scheroc’s in trouble.” Fei looked stricken.

“The Kitsune,” Triss said from the shadows beneath my chair. “It has to be.”

“Aral,” Fei whispered, “please…”

“Just tell me where to go.” I was already halfway to the window.

“He was supposed to be checking out the south barracks,” Fei said as I opened the
shutters.

It was only in that instant that I realized Fei hadn’t gotten around to telling me
why everything was about to go to shit. Nothing I could do about it now. There was
no time.

I hit the ground beyond the window and started running. Fortunately, Fei’s offices
weren’t much more than a couple of stones’ throws from the palace complex and I was
scaling the outer walls within a few minutes. Given a choice, I wouldn’t have come
in this way, as it meant I had to take the same path I’d followed on my last foray
into the palace. But if Scheroc was really facing the Kitsune, every second counted.
And, not only was this the quickest way in from this side, I would be coming in very
close to the south barracks where he was supposed to be eavesdropping.

I had to pause at the top of the wall and let a hundred or
so precious heartbeats go by while I waited for one of the walking patrols to clear
the way. I considered killing the pair of them, but didn’t want to leave any bodies
behind where they might draw attention and raise alarms. Not if I didn’t have to.
To make up for that slowdown, I sail-jumped down from the wall, a risk for certain,
but nobody started shouting alarms. I wanted to sprint, but I kept my speed down to
a lope. As much as I wanted to get there fast, I didn’t dare arrive winded. Not if
the Kitsune was involved.

You do realize you haven’t got Devin’s swords, right?
sent Triss.

That had occurred to me, yes. But I’m not planning on winning yet, so we should be
good.

I’m not sure I follow you. Doesn’t not winning equal getting dead?

I hope not, that would put a real crimp in my plans.

So, you do have a plan then?

More of an outline really. I don’t think we’re going to find Thauvik lounging around
the barracks, so I don’t want to beat the Kitsune yet. There’s no reason for Devin
to give me the tools I need to kill our risen king if I solve his Kitsune problem
prematurely. My only goals right now are to pry Scheroc free of whatever’s got him,
send him on his way, and then make a daring escape.

That was very nearly a joke. Who are you and what have you done with the real Aral
Kingslayer? You know the fellow, serious demeanor, morose, guilt ridden….

Don’t worry, old friend, if we live through this, I’m sure he’ll be back. It’s just
nice to have a clear idea of what needs doing and no moral qualms about it for a little
while. I like Scheroc. I like Fei. Helping them’s the right thing to do, plain and
simple.

Except that if you get yourself killed here, there’ll be no one left to bust Jerik
out of prison and stop Thauvik and the Kitsune from leading a legion of the undead
across the lands of the East.

Devin can handle it.

What! Wait. That was an actual joke, wasn’t it?

Maybe. I—

I came around a corner and stopped hard. I had found Scheroc…probably. I’d planned
on entering the barracks through one of the windows along the back where it ran close
to the outer wall. In a colder climate the builders would probably have used the defensive
fortification as part of the structure of the barracks. But here in Tien, where the
summer heat could kill, they’d opted to run a breezeway between the two. The dark
slot didn’t provide much of a view but it did funnel the prevailing winds nicely,
a good place for an air spirit like the qamasiin to flit around and listen without
creating the wrong kind of stir.

What I had expected to find there was what I had seen in the past: a long, narrow,
poorly lit alley of the sort that would attract footpads were it not inside the palace.
What I actually found had two important additions. One was a floating cage. It was
shaped of shadows and magic and gave off a deep orange spell-light—all invisible to
mortal vision. The second was Nuriko Shadowfox sitting cross-legged atop a small barrel,
her skin glinting gold in the moonlight. Her eyes were closed and she appeared to
be deep in meditation, but as I came around the corner she raised her head, seeming
to look at me without actually lifting her lids.

“Ah, that was fast,” she said, then paused and opened her eyes. “Is that you, Kingslayer?
I’d expected to catch a very different fish with this particular hook. The sprite
is certainly no familiar of yours. Oh well, you’ll make a fine first course. The only
question is whether you’ll go down better sliced thin and raw, or chopped and panfried
with noodles.”

Then, she smiled.

W
hat
do you say to a myth? The Kitsune was a tale to frighten young Blades, not a real
person. No matter that I had already fought her once. That encounter, with its coda
of my living burial, was more the stuff of nightmares than reality. Which was what
the Shadowfox was
supposed
to be, a creature of dark dreams and disturbing fictions, not this calm woman sitting
on a barrel.

After a few moments, she rolled her shoulders and sighed. “Do drop your shroud, child.
Let’s exchange a few pleasant words before we get to the part with the swords and
the screaming. Thauvik agreed to issue orders that will give us all the privacy we
need. So there’s no worry about the Elite or the Crown Guard interrupting us. Come,
sit, talk.”

She snapped her fingers, and the shadow of a nine-tailed fox slid out from beneath
the barrel where she sat, growing suddenly long and thin where it stretched out before
her. For the briefest of moments it touched its nose to my shroud, then it flickered
sideways into one of the nearby windows. In that instant the cloud of shadow that
surrounded me dissolved into a puddle at my feet, shapeless and cold.

Triss!

…I’m…all right.
His voice echoed hollowly in my mind as though it were coming back through a door
that opened into a place beyond the world.
Give me a moment. There.
The puddle twisted and turned, becoming a small, winged dragon.

“Your Triss is stronger of will than most of his kind,” said the Kitsune. “The only
other who has ever recovered from Thiussus’s kiss so quickly is Kelos’s Malthiss,
and that one is almost as exceptional as his human pet.”

Before I could think of anything to say, the nine-tailed fox reappeared carrying another
barrel in jaws grown all out of proportion to the rest of her. She brought it to me
like a dog delivering a fallen bird to its master.

But just as she was about to set it down, she grew a second head that said, “Here.
Sit. Stay.” Then a third, which pitched back in a silent howl of laughter. A fourth
bent down to nose Triss, but this time my Shade was ready. He leaped away, coiling
himself up and around my back so he could look over my shoulder. The barrel landed
neatly on end in front of me. Then, all four heads did the silent-howl bit before
looking each at the other, and dissolving back to one.

Mad, and powerful, and more dangerous than I could have imagined,
sent Triss.

“Now,” said the Kitsune, “are you going to sit? Or am I going to have to kill you
without the benefit of getting a shot at converting you to the methods of my madness?”

“I don’t think you’re likely to convert me to anything, but I’ll sit and listen if
you feel the need to talk.” It would give me time to think, a commodity I badly needed.

“Ah, stalling for time. Good boy.” She made a patting gesture. “The smart choice whichever
way things go, and the one that leaves you most likely to live. Kelos was right when
he called you the best of your generation, or at least that’s what I have to conclude
from what I’ve seen of your lot.”