Archis Varren passed through the castle gates and emerged into the pale moonlight. The wind rushed at him fiercely and he wrapped his cloak tightly about him. General Carter had received his orders from King Samian himself but, after two days, he had failed to report back. At first, Varren had thought it had been a delay in the preparation of supply drops along their designated route south, but he no longer thought so. The general had always been organized.
Winter was biting at their heels and Varren was anxious to begin the campaign as soon as possible. The king had suggested that they hold off until spring but anything could happen in the passing of a single season. In a matter of weeks, the Ronnesians could muster twice their current number, and if Galenros’s latest vision was to be believed, the Ronnesians had sent to their allies for support.
The delay in receiving the report from General Carter had slowed progress and Varren was not impressed. Nor was the king, which surprised him. In fact, Varren was still trying to come to terms with the fact that he had managed to gain the king’s full support. Samian was now almost as eager to get the campaign underway as Varren himself. The last time he had seen the king so excited was when he had first put the Ayon crown on his head and set off to find himself a queen. That little escapade, Varren remembered, had been a nightmare to cover up. While Lhunannon and Galenros had gone after him, relying on the seer’s visions to guide their path, Archis Varren had been left the task of hiding the truth from the royal court and dealing with matters of state.
“The king has decided to visit the mayors and dukes of several prominent cities to the north,” he had lied. “He should return, if all goes well, in a few weeks’ time.”
A little over three weeks later, Samian had returned with Lhunannon and Galenros as a shell of a man.
“She is dead,” the young king had whispered, collapsing into his chair by the fire. “She is dead and I am to blame for it.”
Samian had mourned for a full six months, refusing to exchange his black clothes for his regal attire and very rarely leaving his personal suite. Varren had been forced to tell the concerned public that the king was ill and could not perform public appearances until the doctors pronounced his health stable.
Varren sighed and thanked whichever Spirit had exerted their influence on the king. Had Samian never overcome his grief, the empire could have fallen into ruin. Instead, he had eagerly grown into his role as king of the Ayons, reveling in the prospect of defeating the Ronnesians and suggesting complicated and often intelligent strategies. With a few more years, Varren thought confidently, Samian would make a fine king, and the two of them would have a formidable partnership.
As he reached the general’s house, snow began to drift lazily down from the heavens. If they delayed their campaign any longer, their men would be marching south, ankle deep in snow. The blizzards were never kind to Leith, even the coastal regions received a few inches of snow in high winter. He rapped at the door and stood there, waiting. He had visited the general’s house several times before but never on business. In fact, he had often suspected that the general was trying to flaunt his younger sister to see whether Varren would take interest.
When his knock went unanswered, he did not bother to knock again. He pointed his forefinger toward the lock and a stream of green light spiraled from the tip. It hurtled through the keyhole and he heard the lock click. The door swung open.
He was on his guard the moment he stepped over the threshold. A maid was slumped at the bottom of the general’s grand staircase. The top half of her gray dress was covered in blood from a wound in her neck. Her gurgling, rasping breaths masked his footsteps as he hurried the length of the hall. By the time he reached her, she had fallen silent and her wide eyes had gone blank.
He hastened up the stairs, treading as lightly as he could, and headed straight for the sitting room. The door was shut but there was a sliver of light under the door that told him there was or had been someone recently inside. Just as he was about to place his hand on the doorknob and turn, a shadow passed across the light and he hesitated. He knew General Carter well enough to dismiss the possibility that he had killed the maid. If the general himself was injured or captured, barging into the room beyond could have fatal consequences.
Varren quickly cloaked himself in a spell of concealment and sat down on the floor just outside the room. As he closed his eyes, he felt the full force of his power surging through his veins and harnessed its energy. It built quickly, but instead of projecting it outward, Varren forced it deep inside himself. His body grew cold. Thousands of ethereal cords kept his conscious mind attached to his physical being and he felt each one of them snap as he tore his spirit from his flesh. He felt no pain but a sudden sense of emptiness and vulnerability that still managed to unnerve him.
In his disembodied form, Varren glanced back and saw his body slump, lifeless. He slid through the door as a whisper of a ghost and emerged into the sitting room beyond. Weightless, he glided through the air into the middle of the room and looked around for the owner of the shadow he had seen.
He saw nobody. Nothing seemed amiss. He could see no sign of a struggle and the supper General Carter’s servants had laid out was untouched on the large table. However, moving further into the room, his spectral eyes picked out the shape of a man lying face down, half concealed by a large sofa. He approached the body and, with a stab of anguish and confusion, he recognized Carter. The general, like the woman on the stairs, had been slashed across the throat. Blood was soaking into the intricately designed rug and a dark pool was spreading out around Carter’s head.
A sudden movement behind him made Varren spin. He thought wind was rippling the curtains but he quickly realized it was a woman standing before the window in a white underdress. Her bloodied hands were on the windowsill, preparing to unfasten the latch and effect an escape.
Varren hurtled back across the room, burst through the door and collided with his slumped body. The thousand cords reconnected in an instant, fusing his mind once more with his flesh. Whole once more, he sprang up, flung open the sitting room door and hurried inside. He caught sight of the woman and made a lunge for her, grabbing her wrist just as she jumped. She screamed as she fell but Varren did not let go. He grasped the window ledge as she swung and careened into the outside wall of the house with a dull thud. The woman struggled and lashed out with her free arm, scratching and screaming at him, but he heaved her back up into the room and threw her to the floor. She got quickly to her feet and brandished her bloodied knife at him.
“I’ll gut you, you bastard!” she cried.
Varren glowered in reply.
The woman leaped at him, the knife gleaming red in the light of the fire. With a swift movement, he dodged her attack, grabbed her arm and spun her around. She cried out in pain as he forced her arm behind her back and tightened his fingers around her wrist.
“Drop the knife!”
The woman flung curses at him over her shoulder. Varren drove his elbow into her spine and heard her grunt in pain.
“Drop it!”
The knife slid harmlessly from her fingers. He glanced down at the weapon before kicking it away across the rug and spinning her around to face him. There was still a look of determination in her eyes. Spurred on by a sudden burst of uncontrollable anger, he slapped her hard across the face. She took the blow well, so he hit her again, harder. This time, she crumpled to the floor, whimpering.
“Look at me,” he snarled.
Her large, anxious eyes cautiously rose from the floor to rest on his.
“What were you doing here?”
“P-please, sir,” the woman said. “I’m only a maid!”
“Don’t lie to me!” He lifted his arm with his palm toward her and released a surge of magic. It was not the kind of spell that could be seen, but by the look on the woman’s face, she could definitely feel it. Her eyes began to widen as he slowly closed his fist.
“What were you doing in this house?”
The woman grabbed at her chest and keeled over, gasping. Archis Varren felt a slight pressure throbbing in his palm – her heart. He could feel it beating quicker and quicker as her pain and fear mounted. But she still did not answer him. Furious, he tightened his grip even more.
“No!” she breathed, looking up at him desperately. “Please!”
“Who hired you?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about!”
Varren enclosed his fist almost fully. She released a terrible scream that left his ears ringing.
“Who hired you to kill him?” he asked, motioning to the body of General Carter. “Was it the Ronnesians?”
The woman, who was now pale and shaking, nodded frantically.
“I want names,” Varren said.
“He told me he’d kill my family if I didn’t do it! I had to!”
“Who?”
“I don’t know!” the woman cried. “Please!”
Varren regarded the woman apathetically but then relented, opening his fist. She collapsed to the floor at his feet, panting and gasping, one hand tight over her heart. When she eventually rose to her knees, Varren crouched in front of her, grabbed her jaw tightly in his fingers and fixed her with a stern gaze. The image of her terror-stricken face faded from his view and he saw instead her memories as they flashed before his mind’s eye.
*
The alleyway was dark and mist blanketed the sodden ground. The woman stood at the entrance to the alley with her arm raised, leaning on the wall of a dingy inn, deep in the heart of the lower city. Her dress was cut to expose her legs up to her knees and she cocked her head to the passing men, a fake smile upon her painted lips.
A man approached from a tavern across the street. She lowered her arm and put her hands on her hips, accentuating her breasts and hips seductively.
“See anything you like, sir?”
The man looked her up and down leisurely, taking his time on each of her features. His eyes lingered longest on her full breasts but it was something she was used to. Her mother and mentor had taught her to use her attributes to gain what she wanted a long time ago.
“Yes…Yes, you’ll do,” the man said finally, grinning repugnantly. “Now, back in that alley, I haven’t got much time.”
She was used to taking men out in the open. In fact, she only rarely serviced clients who preferred the privacy of a room. She knew that alley well and had already become intimately acquainted with some of its darker corners that night. The few coins she had earned from her other customers, which she had stowed in her bodice, would buy her enough food to last her family a couple of days. After him, she could go home.
She took his hand and led him down the alley to a space sheltered by a stack of crates and barrels. There, she faced him and reached forward to cup him between his legs. From her experience, the clients liked it when she stimulated them beforehand and it made the business happen a whole lot quicker. But this customer did not let her get that far. He forced her roughly against the wall, one hand tight around her neck and the other brandishing a knife only inches from her face. She froze.
“You can’t afford to pay?” she asked, her voice quivering from fear.
“I don’t want to pay,” the man corrected her.
“I don’t do this for free,” she said. “I have to pay my way, you know.”
“Got children, do you? Do they know their mother’s a whore?”
She glanced from his face to the knife, feeling beads of sweat trickle down the back of her neck.
“What would they say if they found out? What would they do if they heard their darling mother was selling her body for a few measly scraps of bread? Four men tonight so far, is that right? How much does that give you? Ten pfenns?”
“You’ve been watching me!”
“I singled you out,” the man said, grinning again. “I want you to do something for me.”
“I already told you, I don’t do this job for free.”
The man tightened his grip on her throat and his eyes flashed with anger. “The empire is overrun with filth like you. Don’t try to play games. I know where your apartment is. I know the names of your three children. I know that one of them has the fever and may not live out the week. What would happen to them if you don’t return home tonight? I’ve seen young girls on the street. Some men like them before they’re ripe to pluck. Your eldest will have to feed the others somehow.”
She tried to lift her foot to kick at him but he pressed his body against hers roughly and knocked the wind out of her.
“You don’t want to be fighting me. I need what you can give and, if you love your children – if a whore can love – then you’ll listen to what I have to say.”
She nodded frantically.
“I don’t want you for myself, you’re for a friend of mine,” the man said. “He likes his women to be exotic and you’re the darkest woman I could find. Tomorrow, I want you to go to this address and ask to see this man.” He produced a scrap of paper from his pocket and held it up. “This man, you must understand, is a wealthy bastard, so wear the best you’ve got. Nothing crude like this filth you’re wearing.”
“What…what sort of service is he after?”
“It doesn’t matter what he’s after, it’s what I’m after,” the man said sternly. “I want you to get into his house, go up to his room and, once you’re there, I want you to kill him.”
She gasped and shook her head, her eyes wide.
“Oh, I’m afraid you have no choice. You will do this, because if you don’t, I’ll go up to your apartment and kill your darlings.”
“You wouldn’t!” she cried.
He fixed her with a cruel gaze. “Don’t tempt me if you value their lives. This man needs to be killed.”
“Then do it yourself!”
“I can’t,” the man admitted. “The only strangers he allows into his house are ladies of pleasure. He doesn’t do men. So what’s it to be? General Carter or your three children?”
She glanced at the knife again. The man was serious. She nodded reluctantly and the man smiled. He stuffed the piece of paper down the front of her bodice and turned to leave.
Varren saw her as she approached the house the man had indicated. She had walked the streets of the upper city only a few times before but had not lost her way. The upper floor windows were lit behind drawn curtains and she saw a shadow passing them. That was her man.
She knocked twice on the door and then arranged herself nervously, making sure the knife she had concealed on her thigh was ready to be drawn. Her dress did not reveal her ankles tonight, though a slit ran up to her right knee. A maid opened the door and looked her up and down with an obvious note of disdain.
“Miriam Dill. Your master is expecting me,” she said as calmly as she could, and did not wait to be admitted before crossing the threshold.
“Another one? I’ll let him know you’ve arrived,” the maid said, closing the door. “Can I take your cloak?”
Miriam drew herself up proudly and removed her cloak. The maid hung the dark cloak up beside the door and then curtseyed stiffly.
“Wait here.”
The maid glanced at her as she passed and then disappeared upstairs for several minutes. Miriam grew quickly impatient and walked the length of the hallway to the stairs. The sooner this was over, the sooner she would be able to contact the man and be rid of him forever.
The maid returned and made a casual gesture for Miriam to follow. She ascended the grand staircase and shadowed the maid as she walked across the landing and down a passageway to an open door. The maid stood outside and made a brief gesture for her to enter.
The sitting room was lit by half-a-dozen candelabra and the table that dominated the middle of the room was laden with fruit and wine. There was a fire crackling in the grate and a man rose from one of the comfortable armchairs in front of it. He looked her up and down but not like her usual clients surveyed her – there was an expression of pure delight on his face.
“Do sit down,” he said, offering her the second chair.
She sat awkwardly, feeling the sharp edge of the knife on her thigh. She could see the general’s eyes raking over her body as she warmed herself before the fire and went over the plan in her head.
“I apologize,” the general said, easing himself into his own chair once he had shut the door. “I had planned to offer you some refreshment first, but your body is a welcome distraction. Take off your clothes.”
Miriam stood, knowing the time to strike would be soon. She reached behind her back and began to untie the cords of her dress, then slowly prized it apart at the back. She slid the dress off her shoulders and let it fall to a heap around her ankles, revealing her white undergarments. The general sat back in his chair and watched her, his eyes wide and eager. She stepped out of her dress, then lifted a leg and brought it down heavily on the chair between the man’s thighs. He drew back in his chair suddenly as though he had expected her to crush his manhood but, calming, he unlaced her boot and pulled it off, exposing her stockinged foot, which he caressed diligently.
He was distracted. She feigned running her hands over herself in the way she knew some men enjoyed and found the handle of the knife instantly. But the general was following her hands with his eyes and she was forced to distract him once more.
She twisted her foot from his grasp and ran it along one of his thighs, inch by inch. He shifted himself in his chair and seemed unable to decide whether to let her do what she wanted or to grasp her leg with his eager hands. Miriam did not give him time to decide. Pretending to raise the hem of her undergarments for him, she grasped the handle of the knife and, without a moment’s hesitation or doubt, she slashed the blade across his exposed neck.
He grunted and, for a moment, did not seem to understand what had happened. His eyes darted from her face to the bloody knife in her grasp, and then a shaky hand came up to his neck. Blood was spurting from the wound. He made to rise from the chair and Miriam stumbled back, her eyes wide. The general’s knees buckled and he fell, rasping.
She took to her heels, leaving her dress lying partially beneath General Carter’s twitching body. She flung open the door and ran down the length of the passageway. There was blood splattered across her chest, a telltale sign of what she had done. Her cloak could cover it until she reached home and could wash. She reached the landing and flew down the stairs, colliding with the maid, who was carrying a bundle of fresh towels upstairs.
“Hey!” the maid cried, as the towels cascaded to the floor. She clamped her hand angrily around Miriam’s wrist. “What is going on? Is that blood?”
Miriam acted without thinking. Her knife came up again and she dealt the maid a similar blow across the throat. The hold on her wrist slackened and the maid crumpled and fell down the stairs, gasping. Miriam began to shake with shock. She ran down the hallway toward the front door and her cloak. If she could only escape the house, she and her children would be safe! She was barely half-a-dozen yards from it when someone knocked. She ground to a halt and stood there, trembling and blood-splattered. She could hear her heart beating frantically in her ears.
The room. I can try the window.
*
Archis Varren retreated from Miriam’s memories and turned away from the woman, contemplating what he had just seen. The man who had hired her had been a Ronnesian, his accent had revealed that much. So it had been a political killing. General Carter had been a fool for seeing courtesans. The empire needed him and his ideas so badly – he was worth the lives of a dozen whores’ families.
In a moment of anger, Varren whirled around again and, seeing Miriam rise shakily to her feet, he flung his hand out in her direction. A bolt of white-hot energy hurtled toward her chest and she crumpled soundlessly, barely seeing the spell that killed her.
Varren prowled around the room in the aftermath of his fury and ended up at the general’s writing desk. He would have bypassed it without a second thought had he not noticed a sealed letter addressed to himself lying there. He broke the seal quickly and smoothed out the single page.
My lord,
Apologies for the late reply. I have been inspecting our reserves at Rhóhn and have only this hour returned. Unfortunately, the army will need more time before deployment. Though we have a vast quantity of ships in the harbor at present, there is not nearly enough for passage for the amount of men you suggest. More ships, therefore, have been commissioned from Tolersley, but they will not arrive before the month is out, nor will our carpenters be able to modify them. However, as soon as work is completed, the fleet need only take the men down to the agreed destination before the campaign may begin. Supply drops are all in place and the bridge is almost complete.
Varren sighed as he lowered the letter. At least the man had completed his work. Regardless, this unfortunate turn of events would halt the campaign. The army fiercely respected their general of ten years and would be devastated with the news of his death. But the demise of one man would not deter King Samian now.
Archis Varren crossed the room and knelt by Carter’s corpse. The general’s well-built frame and strong muscles had been powerless to resist this creature of the night. It unnerved Varren that a man as great as he had died in such an undignified way. He had fought countless battles amid his infantrymen and campaigned long and hard, all to die at the hands of a whore.
General Carter’s eyes were open and staring. Varren slid his fingers across the lids, closing them. He rose and looked down at the woman who had killed the Ayon general. The Ronnesian who had threatened her had given her a piece of paper detailing what she must do. He pulled the woman’s dress out from under Carter’s body and searched it for pockets. A great deal of the general’s blood had soaked through it, turning it from blue to black.
Nothing, he thought angrily, thrusting the garment back down. Where would the whore have hidden…?
Frowning, Varren approached the body of the woman and stood over her. He crouched and drew open the cords of her bodice. When they were loose, her breasts spilled out but so too did a scrap of paper. Varren quickly snatched it up and moved over to the nearest candelabra.
Well, well, well…who is this Nomanis Tirk?