The Return of Nightfall (52 page)

Only then did Nightfall notice the night chill of the water. A sudden shiver racked him, its intensity an agony all its own. With it, raw rage awakened from his core. Balshaz was dead, murdered for his curiosity, a good man killed by fools and their goons. Nightfall’s anger erupted into a bonfire he could scarcely control. The water seemed to disappear; the cold no longer bothered him. All that existed was that fiery fury seething and boiling inside him. It did not matter that Balshaz was not real, a figment of his imagination. The Bloodshadow Brotherhood had taken something from him that mattered far beyond the charade. They had taken King Edward.

Attentive only to his grief, Nightfall had fought for over a month within the vows that constrained him, promises made to those who mattered most. Edward would never forgive a rescue that revived the demon who had haunted the nightmares of the world’s bravest warriors; but Edward no longer had a choice. Alyndar needed its king. Hampered by too many rules, Nightfall had barely gained ground in his search. Now, he glanced upward, seeing only the darkness of the docks and the meager light it admitted through the cracks. Beneath its shadow, he swam, without a splash, to the rain-battered shore. From there, he watched the men who had murdered Balshaz straggle back toward town, memorizing their walks and demeanors, every line the shrouded moon revealed of their faces. They executed the almost imperceptible congratulatory gestures of the underground, their grins broad, their demeanors high. They relished the slaughter of a popular merchant whose only crime was asking questions.

Nightfall headed for the coastal cliffs and one of the deep, all but unattainable hiding places where he kept his special gear: his clothing, his cosmetics, the tools of his trade. Just getting there would tax all of his talents and skills, and only he even knew where to look. The moment he arrived, his life, the world itself, would irrevocably change.

Nightfall had returned.

 

Lightning slithered through the cracks of the shuttered windows of Eldour’s common room, and the door slammed open beneath a horrific explosion of thunder. A lone figure appeared at a lintel darkened to pitch in the wake of the storm. Wind whipped filthy black hair into a tangle; and the long, wickedly scarred face tapered to a short-cropped beard. As he stepped across that doorway, he seemed less to physically move than to separate from the squall and blackness. Huge, menacing, he claimed the room, owning it as fully as he had the violent night. It took a while for every eye to find him; but, once they did, they stared, unable to turn away. Whispers followed, everyone speaking the name Eldour’s mind had already conjured: Nightfall.

Eldour stood gazing with the rest, utterly incapable of movement. He clutched a bottle of soured wine in one hand, an empty drinking bowl in the other. Deep down, he had known Nightfall would return; demons did not die at the whim of mere mortals, even be they kings. Like the others, he watched the creature glide silkily toward him, spawned, it seemed, from a tempest that now seemed more than natural. He wore a black leather doublet studded with metal that buttoned up the front. The sleeves were paned above the elbows, and skirt tabs hung over close-fitting breeches. He wore daggers lashed to his wrists and thrust through a sash of brilliant lavender, many with the skull hilt designs he sometimes left in warning. These were not dark garments made for skulking through gloom like most of Hartrin’s thugs. The shadows seemed to cover him as a special favor to one of their own. In torchlight, he showed his colors like a threat, in the manner of a poisonous insect or reptile.

Nightfall moved like the wind: silent, deadly, and sudden. Before Eldour could think to do or say anything, he found the demon in front of him. Eyes like blackened steel met his and pierced him to his soul. He read anger there and hunger before the intensity of that stare sent his own gaze dodging wildly. Seized with the sudden urge to beg for his life, he bit his lips closed. He could not appeal to a heart that did not beat, that held no mercy. “What . . . ?” he finally managed, his voice a squeaky parody of normal. “What can I get for you, sir?”

Nightfall’s voice was gravel. It emerged softly; Eldour doubted anyone else could hear it, but it held a commanding edge that all but forced him to comply. “Who is in the safe room?”

Two answers stood at the ready, depending on the questioner. The first, total denial that such a place existed, for strangers and town guards. The second, a blithe reminder that an army could not force him to surrender such information, followed by a quick warning to whoever met below. Neither found its way to Eldour’s lips. For Nightfall, and Nightfall alone, he did the unthinkable and whispered, “The Brotherhood.”

Nightfall disappeared into the storage room. Eldour felt sweat slick him all over: wetting his fingers, trickling along his spine, beading above his upper lip. The others in the common room watched him, perhaps to see if he would try to stop the demon from accessing places anyone else would need permission to enter. He glanced toward his bouncers, both of whom avoided his gaze. They would tackle the most massive town guard, or a giant of a killer, without a moment’s hesitation; but neither wanted the job of trying to stop Nightfall. The patrons fell to whispering, and Eldour went back to pouring drinks. Even the pretext of interfering with the demon’s business was not worth a horrific death or the rending of his soul.

 

Hidden behind the myriad crates and barrels of Eldour’s storage cellar, flush with the floor and perfectly blended with the planking, the trapdoor yielded on well-oiled hinges. Nightfall descended the familiar dark staircase, careful to bypass the third step, which usually creaked in warning. Below, he could see the circular edge of lantern glow and hear the murmuring voices of a group of men. Still in the shadows of the stairwell, he studied the layout just below him.

A single rectangular table took up most of the space. Currently, all nine chairs were occupied, and three additional men crouched or sat on the floor. Nightfall recognized several of them, including the silk-swathed, coldhearted assassin who led them. Named Antrin, he had coveted Nightfall’s position as the sovereign of crime, bragging he would one day organize it into a powerful network that would harass kings from their castles. Though he rarely spoke the thought aloud, he hated that the populace attributed most of his crimes to Nightfall, nearly as much as Nightfall did himself. Antrin killed with a bestial pleasure, often playing his victims like mice beneath a cat’s paw. He thrived on their terror; it made him giddy with power; and, from what Nightfall had heard, served as an aphrodisiac as well. After every kill, a conquest followed.

The others ranged from lithe-fingered or honey-tongued con men to nimble thieves and hard-core murderers. The only unifying thread seemed to be skill. Like Nightfall, Antrin had an eye for professionalism. Either that, or those of lesser ability who joined had already lost their lives to the Brotherhood. It would not surprise Nightfall to learn Antrin punished failures with death, though it would also follow that successes achieved great riches. Otherwise, no one would dare to join him.

Nightfall knew five of the men from a more recent association, memorized at the edge of the docks after his escape from the ocean. These exchanged smug glances, though the topic of conversation had surely changed in the time it had taken Nightfall to rappel to his cave and recover daggers and clothing carefully selected to enhance an appearance of menace. He had applied the proper scars, the filth that blackened his hair, and the false beard and mustache, which would take at least a week to grow honestly.

Antrin was finishing a lecture on how to maintain the mystique of the Bloodshadow Brotherhood, which mostly involved flawless execution of his own brilliant plans, terrorizing witnesses with senseless and brutal slaughter, and killing anyone who seemed too close to or interested in their organization.

Nightfall waited only until he had positively identified the group. Freeing one of his specially crafted throwing knives, seamlessly balanced and decorated with leering skulls, he hurled it at Antrin.

The knife soared soundlessly through the air, embedding, as aimed, in Antrin’s throat. The assassin broke off in mid-word. His head jerked backward. His hands flew to his neck, and his eyes went wide with shock. Blood striped his knuckles, winding down his collar. Then, suddenly, he crumpled to the floor.

For an instant, nothing happened.

Nightfall used the silence to step grandly from the shadows, his expression schooled to reveal nothing but an ominous aura of lethal danger. “Now that I’ve introduced myself, I want some information.”

Daggers zipped toward Nightfall. He dodged the first with an effortless spin, and it clattered against the wooden stairs. Snatching two more from the air, he rebounded them from lifelong practice. Their wielders fell, mortally wounded. Two men drew swords, though the confines of the room gave them no way to swing without injuring companions. A grubby little con man made a leap for the escape hatch, crashing into the barrel Nightfall had placed there earlier. A moment later, his head reappeared in the opening, and he scrabbled to escape from this new prison.

Four more blades hurtled through the air. Less coordinated, these came to him in pairs that he again rebounded. Three met their mark, and the fourth went wild, leaving its thrower pawing at his neck anyway. He made a furious charge for the escape hatch, only to find it full of barrel and conman. In a move more desperate than considered, he slammed an arm against the lamp, spilling glass and burning oil across the tabletop. The old wood, saturated with years of spilled alcohol, ignited like a torch, filling the room with roaring flames and suffocating smoke.

Nightfall swore, forced to retreat. He could hear men thumping around the room, blinded by the blaze and aware their only viable escape lay behind the demon. Dizzied by the fumes despite his superior position, Nightfall knew they would all die in moments. He could not afford to allow that to happen. Catching a deep lungful of air, he plunged back into the room, seizing the first arm the flames revealed. He felt the man stiffen in his grip. A flash of red caught his eye. Before he could think to identify it, the sword in the man’s other hand slashed wildly, tearing through Nightfall’s doublet and underlinens to slice the flesh just above his left wrist.

“Hell take you!” Half blind himself, Nightfall trebled his weight and slammed a fist against the other’s head. The man stumbled wildly, straining Nightfall’s other arm and nearly tearing free from his grip. The sword crashed to the steps. Nightfall dropped his weight to normal and dragged whomever he held safely through the trapdoor. Not caring who tried to follow, he kicked the door closed and stood upon it.

Frenzied screams emerged from beneath him, muffled by wood. Their plight worried Nightfall’s conscience in Dyfrin’s voice, then Edward’s. He ignored both. The Bloodshadow Brotherhood had sealed its own fate when it hid behind murder and when one of its members chose to start that fire. Hardening his heart, Nightfall played his part as he had trained himself to do. He flung his captive toward the shambles of the storeroom. “Don’t move!” Using his shoulder, he shoved a heavy barrel over the exit. With any luck, it contained water, which might help douse the fire once it ate through the layers of wood.

The moment he finished, Nightfall turned his full attention to the man he had rescued. Cowering in a corner, the young thief had lost all of his earlier fight. He stared at Nightfall through eyes that fairly radiated terror, his face and clothing darkened with soot. Nightfall knew this man, too. He went by the nickname Roach and had a knack for petty thievery. The fifth or sixth son of a handmaiden who served a duke’s daughter, he had learned sword craft from a real tutor, until his sticky fingers had gotten him tossed from the castle before he reached his thirteenth birthday. Now well into adolescence, he had surely looked attractive to the Brotherhood because of his ability to fight. No doubt, he had had a hand in the slaughter that resulted in King Edward’s disappearance.

Nightfall rounded on the young thief. “Talk.”

“No,” Roach said, though it sounded more like a question than the defiant refusal he clearly intended.

Nightfall closed the distance between them in an instant. “Fine. I’m putting you back.” He grabbed a handful of shirt at Roach’s throat with a movement so quick, the boy never thought to dodge it.

“What?”

“I’m putting you back with the others,” Nightfall said, indicating the covered trapdoor with a tip of his head. “I’ll save someone with a glibber tongue.”

Roach’s eyes followed Nightfall’s gesture, then widened. Terror flickered through them. He met Nightfall’s gaze, a bigger mistake. What he found there had quelled nastier, more capable assassins than himself.

“Please,” Roach whispered, though the grip at his neck could not be suffocating. Yet. “I have gems. Expensive ones. You can have them. Just let me go.”

Nightfall had no interest in valuables, but curiosity got the better of him. “Let me see.”

Roach’s hand disappeared into his shirt. Nightfall prepared himself for the dagger the youngster might retrieve, surprised to instead find the two sapphires the captain had given him, balanced on the young man’s palm.

Despite the looming fire, despite the desperation that had driven him to this position, Nightfall barely suppressed a laugh. The captain had warned him those items always returned. “I’m not here to rob you. I’m here for information.”

Roach licked his lips, attention still on the trapdoor beneath the barrel. The screams had lessened nearly to nothing, but the crackle of flames became all the louder for their lapse. Soon, the entire inn might collapse into an inescapable bonfire.

Though not unaware of the danger, Nightfall refused to show it. If it came to will and guts, he would have no trouble outlasting Roach. “Where is King Edward of Alyndar?”