The Twilight Empire Read online

  “Not my fight,” she says.

  Fine. Whatever.

  Just me, then.

  I stalk down the hallway, my blood starting to rise. How dare they threaten Bell?

  As I pass Deliah’s door, I strike it with the pommel of my sword. If she isn’t outside, then she must have come upstairs. Sure enough, she swings open the door after a few heartbeats, her indigo hair artfully mussed and a slight smile curving her lips, like she expected to find me at the threshold of her room. Her seductive expression vanishes, though, when she sees me dressed in armor and brandishing my sword.

  “What’s going on?”

  “It’s Bell,” I reply. “Some mercenaries have her and are demanding I come outside. The Widowers.”

  Deliah arches a thin eyebrow. “The Widowers? That’s a dangerous name. I thought I saw a few of those spiders at the Last Word – you insulted one at the bar, I believe.” She glances back at the clothes and bits of armor scattered about her room. We only arrived a few bells ago, and she’s already made a tremendous mess of the place. “I’m right behind you. Let me get ready and I’ll come down – don’t kill them all too quickly.”

  I nod and turn away. Three deadly warriors up here with me, and I have to descend alone into the trap the Widowers have set. Sighing, I start down the stairs, taking them two at a time until I’m standing in the inn’s common room again. No sign of the miners now, and there’s just a tuft of white hair rising up from where the old innkeeper is cowering behind the bar.

  I fling the ornate inn doors wide, smashing them so hard I hear the crystal inlaid in the wood shatter, then step out into the night.

  The scene outside hasn’t changed much, though Bell has stopped squirming and now hangs limply in the large warrior’s arm. She’s dazed, and a red mark has blossomed on her face – Charix must have struck her. The scientist’s daughter stirs when she sees me, pulling weakly at the arm encircling her.

  “Talin . . .” she slurs, and I try to tamp down my anger. Rushing ahead in rage is probably just what the bastard wants.

  Charix runs his fingers through Bell’s hair, then kisses her lightly on the cheek and tosses her aside. She collapses in a crumpled heap. The milling arachnia erupt in a weird chittering that might be laughter. I make a quick count: five of the spider-kin, and two dangerous-looking men bristling with weapons.

  “She’s free, my friend, if you hand over your sword,” Charix says with a broad smile.

  I raise my green-glass sword so that the point is aimed at the mercenary’s chest. “How about you try and take it from me?”

  Charix sighs. “Tempting, but I’ve heard how good you are with that blade. And as much as I’d love to test myself against you, I think it’s just safer if I let my compatriots hack you into little bloody pieces.”

  I set myself in a defensive stance as the half-circle of spider-kin edges closer, their front legs sheathed in curving metal.

  Damn. How do you fight giant spiders with swords for legs?

  I feel a presence beside me and I glance over to see Deliah. She’s donned her black-chitin armor, and is gripping the long handle of her glaive. The spiders pause, as if unsettled by the arrival of the lamias.

  “It’s just like a bug hunt back on Vel,” she says, far too cheerily.

  Another whistle from the Widower captain and the spiders surge forward, their metal-tipped limbs flashing. Deliah’s glaive turns aside one thrust, raising a scattering of blue sparks, then she twists away from another thrusting arm and jabs the pointed butt of her weapon into the assailant’s thorax. More are closing on her but the swarm is around me now as well and I lose sight of Deliah through the tangle of segmented legs and carapaces. My sword meets an arcing leg and passes through the metal like it was cheese; the spider screeches and recoils, yellow ichor spraying. I hack and thrust, lopping off limbs as they flash at me.

  As if of one mind, the spider-kin scuttle back, leaving a scattering of legs behind. I glance over at Deliah – her cheeks are flushed, and yellow blood streaks the curving blade of her glaive.

  “That sword certainly is special,” Charix says from behind the wall of arachnia. “The metal on their arms is supposed to be unbreakable. But I wonder if that pretty green glass can cut through their silk.” He lets out a another higher-pitched whistle and a moment later I sense something above me. I drop and roll in the dirt, just avoiding the edges of a net. Deliah isn’t fast enough, though, and she lets out a cry of frustration as the silvery strands settle over her. She tries to tear through it, but it only clings tighter to her. I glance upwards and see a pair of angular dark shapes perched on the roof, picked out against the stars.

  I scramble to my feet, swaying, and lunge towards where Deliah is struggling with what I see now is a web. The spider-kin give me a wide, wary berth as I position myself between them and the lamias.

  “I can’t get it off,” Deliah says, panic in her voice. I’m tempted to try and cut the strands holding her, but I’m afraid the arachnia will rush me if I lower my sword.

  “Oh, ho, what’s this?”

  My gaze goes from the seething mob of huge spiders to Charix. He’s holding something up, a squirming ball of shimmering darkness; shreds of the inky substance flake away, revealing Xela, her feet off the ground, his hand around her throat. She’s beating frantically at his arm, but it’s like he’s made of iron. He grins viciously, shaking her.

  “Ah, the shadowdancer. I wondered when you’d show up. You’re the other one the hierophant wants.”

  Xela makes a hacking noise, gasping for air. Then there’s a curving dagger in her hand, flashing in the torchlight. Charix catches her wrist casually, and with a vicious twist the dagger falls from her fingers.

  “Let her go!” I cry, and he chuckles.

  “Drop your sword and I’ll drop her. But you should hurry.”

  If I put down my sword the spider-kin will surge forward and kill Deliah and myself. If I don’t, Charix will choke the life out of Xela. I hesitate, despising the choice in front of me.

  “Very well,” the mercenary snarls, his lip curling. “This one dies and –”

  His face jerks back as a shard of metal appears in his forehead; he releases Xela, who collapses in a heap. Slowly his fingers drift to the two short blades protruding from his brow; the third blade is buried nearly to the hilt, perhaps a finger length of tapering steel embedded in his skull. He topples backwards, dead.

  While the spider-kin are distracted, I slash at the web binding Deliah, opening up a gash so that hopefully she can wriggle free. Then, screaming a battle cry, I charge the arachnia, hewing through their thin legs. Bitter ichor splatters my face and lips and I’m laughing as I lay about, and suddenly the spiders are scuttling back, fleeing before my wrath. My green-glass sword passes through a distended abdomen and it bursts like an overripe fruit, drenching my shirt in foul juices. I cut down the two other human warriors who stood with the Widowers as they’re tripping over themselves trying to escape. Red splashes the pale green glass of my blade, mixing with the streaks of yellow spider blood.

  I glance back for a moment and see that Deliah has extricated herself from the web and has chased one of the arachnia back into the inn, whirling her glaive. Then I plunge ahead again, thrusting and hacking through the remaining spiders.

  They don’t last long, and soon I’m standing in a circle of hacked-off limbs and sliced-open thoraxes. A thump makes me turn around just in time to see a second spider-kin fall from the roof, joining the first, which is on its back with its legs curled up in death. I’d bet there are three-pronged throwing knives embedded in the creatures somewhere. I glance up and see a small shadow perched on the lip of the roof. Then it’s gone, vanishing into the dark.

  Fen Poria. No time to wonder where she’s off to.

  I crouch beside Bell and Xela. The shadowdancer is sitting up, rubbing at her throat. Bell is making sounds into the grass, her legs and arms moving slightly.

  “Are you all right?” I ask Xela,
and she nods, then gives a wrenching cough.

  “Fine.” She looks around at the carnage. “Tainted saints, you are a butcher when you’re angry.”

  “I was protecting the three of you,” I say defensively.

  Xela glances around. “Where’s Deliah?” she asks just as a shattering crash comes from inside the inn.

  Leaving the women behind me, I leap to my feet and rush up the steps, skidding to a halt when I see what’s happened to the inn’s common room. The light of the flickering glowsphere plays across a splintered mess of wood that once was antique tables and chairs, and the floor is carpeted in shards of the red crystal. Deliah is breathing hard, the haft of her glaive resting across her shoulders, one boot on the ruptured carapace of a very large and very dead arachnia.

  She turns, sees me surveying the mess, and smiles as she slides her weapon into the straps across her back. Just as she opens her mouth, a horrified groan comes from behind the bar. The ancient innkeeper rises from his hiding place, and his face pales at the devastation of the common room.

  “Oh, saints save me. What have you done? I’m ruined.”

  Deliah shrugs, clearly uncaring, so I try and put guilt enough for both of us into my tone. “Ah, we’re sorry.”

  “Ruined,” he continues, ignoring me. “Those sculptures were priceless . . . those tables were from before the Age of Madness . . .”

  “Well, at least all your guests are safe,” I say, trying to comfort him.

  He points a quivering finger at Deliah, who is ignoring him. “Safe? She was the one who smashed it all up! I’ll call the guard! The Trusts!”

  “Hold on,” Xela rasps, pushing past me. She approaches the innkeeper and pulls something from a pocket. “Know what this is?”

  The innkeeper squints at the small dark thing, then he pulls back with a gasp, his eyes blinking. “Y-yes.”

  “Good. You can have it, if in return you do not hold my friends and I responsible for what happened here tonight.”

  He gulps as she holds out the object – I can’t see it too clearly, but it looks like a large black pearl – and then carefully accepts it with a shaking hand. I could be wrong, but I think he might actually sketch an awkward bow as it falls into his palm.

  Xela turns on her heel sharply, clapping her hands together as she faces Deliah and me. “That’s settled, then. But we should leave now, before anyone else shows up chasing the bounty.”

  “Leave now? At night?” Deliah asks dubiously.

  “At night,” the shadowdancer answers her, still rubbing at her neck. “Don’t worry, I see pretty well in the dark.”

  2

  The skull watches us labor up the rocky path. It’s perched atop a jumbled cairn of stones, gleaming in the harsh midday sun. Every scrap of flesh has been picked away, revealing a wide grin that seems to convey ‘Enjoy the day, travelers – it may be your last.’ Buzzards wheel far overhead, dark specks in an otherwise unblemished wash of blue.

  “Well, that’s cheery,” Bell says when she notices the leering sentinel. As if in reply, a black-winged bird flaps down to perch on the skull, then cocks its head and shrieks a greeting.

  “It’s happy to see us,” Xela observes, squinting up at the circling flock. “Probably thinks we’ll end up as dinner soon enough.”

  “I thought you said the way across the Wall was safe,” I say, my gaze wandering over the mountains rearing around us. It feels to me like we are in the palm of a stone giant, its fingers the peaks thrusting into the cloudless sky, and at any moment it might violently close its fist. The slopes at this elevation are rocky, covered with scree and stunted trees, but higher up it’s all ice and snow. You could hide a thousand bandits behind the rocks just off the trail, and if that wasn’t enough to worry about it certainly looks like avalanches regularly sweep down from above.

  “Safe for caravans,” Xela replies, picking at something caught in her pony’s mane. “Usually a string of wagons, guarded by dozens of swords. Not many travelers try the mountain road on their own.”

  “Great,” I mutter, hunching my shoulders against the freezing wind. “I wonder why?”

  No one answers me, and once again our little band lapses into silence. It’s been that way for much of the last two days, with everyone consumed with their own thoughts – mostly hatred directed at the weather, as far as I can tell. The comradery forged during the hurried flight from Ysala is already showing cracks.

  “How are you?” I venture, turning to Deliah. The lamias looms over me; she insisted on bringing her great black horse on this journey, refusing the hardy little mountain ponies the rest of us had procured. She glances at me, her face almost lost deep within the folds of her cowl. She’s wearing so many layers of furs that it’s nearly impossible to tell that under that mound is a woman. Deliah scowls. She looks miserable.

  “In Vel, we believe in an afterlife like this place. It’s where you go if you are particularly evil, to suffer a constant, inescapable cold.” She blows out her cheeks, her breath curling in the frozen air. “Look at that! My spirit is trying to escape.”

  “Five days,” I remind her with a sigh. “And then we’ll be in Zim. But you should steel yourself, because we’re going much higher before we start to descend.”

  Grumbling, Deliah recedes deeper into her furs.

  Leaving the lamias to her brooding, I kick my pony forward, coming alongside Bell. She’s handling the cold much better, sitting tall and straight-backed in her saddle, as if in challenge to the cutting wind. She glances over at me when she hears the clop of my pony’s hooves. For the briefest of moments I see something in her face, a slight tremor as her mouth twitches and her eyes blink, but then that’s smoothed away and she regards me with her usual haughtiness. Several times since we’ve met, her mask has cracked and I’ve glimpsed the woman within – often after a bottle or two of wine – but usually Bell keeps her true self well hidden.

  “And you?” I ask her. “Are you feeling better?”

  “I’m fine now,” she replies, though I do notice her gloved hand drifting to the spot on her arm where Charix had grabbed her. That first night-ride as we fled the inn and started on the mountain road had been hard on her – she was in no condition to sit a saddle, so Deliah rode double with her until dawn crept across the sky. That was more than two days ago, and now Bell looks to be handling the journey better than anyone else. Perhaps too stoically, in truth. Is she missing her father and her city?

  I consider approaching Xela as well, but I’ve already failed twice and the shadowdancer has been withdrawn and moody since we entered the mountains, snapping at each of us over trivial matters. It seems the Zimani isn’t thrilled to be returning to her homeland, even though this journey was her suggestion. Something awaits her there that is casting a long shadow. Perhaps literally – she’s mentioned several times about the Umbra, which, I’ve gathered. is where shadowdancers are trained. Is she an outcast? A renegade? Will she be in danger when she returns?

  I sigh, settling back into my saddle. Hopefully, everyone’s mood will improve once we leave the mountains. I’m not enjoying myself either, particularly, but my spirits have been raised by the knowledge that I am finally on my way to find Valyra. I shade my eyes, staring at the cloud-shrouded peaks ahead. The rumors we heard in Ysala spoke of a young woman, somewhere deep in the Enlightened Empire of Zim who could heal with a touch. I remember the feel of Valyra’s healing energy as she knitted my body back together.

  It must be her. I will find her, and keep her safe in these strange and deadly lands, as I promised her mother.

  And maybe she can help me in recovering my own lost past. Who was I before I stumbled out of that dust storm? Why had I carried a key that opened doors between the worlds? What were the Shriven, those demons that had spoken to me as if I was known to them? And how had one followed me into this world? Could more be coming?

  I shiver again, and not entirely because of the bracing wind.

  “Shelter!” Xela cries, and I
raise my head from the burrow I’ve made in the folds of the scarf wound around my neck. The shadowdancer is standing in her stirrups, pointing at a desultory pile of stones hunkering in the lee of a great boulder. For a moment I think she must be mistaken, but then I see there’s a sod roof and a listing entrance that looks about to collapse at any moment.

  We find a place where our mounts will be protected from the cutting wind and hurry inside. No tables or chairs in this way-stop, but there’s enough space for a dozen to sleep comfortably, and a blackened firepit beneath a hole cut from the sod. There’s even a small pile of brush that some blessed traveler has left behind. Deliah doesn’t hesitate and rushes over to heap the kindling in the pit.

  Bell tosses her travel bag in a corner and turns back to the door. “I’ll find more of that. I saw some outside.”

  “You do that,” Deliah says, striking flint to stone. A spark catches and the lamias lets out a wordless moan of appreciation.

  Bell grunts something and vanishes. I’m about to follow her when Xela stomps inside the hut, her face clouded. She shakes the bag she’s holding in Deliah’s direction.

  “Is this all?”

  The lamias doesn’t turn around, apparently focused on the warmth creeping up her numb fingers as she holds her arms out to the growing flame.

  Xela throws the bag down. “I said, is this all?”

  Now Deliah does look. “All what?”

  “All the food! I packed three food bags.”

  Deliah shrugs. “Maybe I only grabbed two. It was dark.”

  Xela spits out a guttural curse and takes a few steps closer to the lamias, her fists clenched. “Well, what are we going to do? Do you see a lot of fruit trees along the road? Have you noticed any game we can catch?”

  “Calm down, Zimani. If we get hungry, we’ll eat the scientist’s daughter.”

  That was a jest. I hope.

  Xela whirls on me. “Talin?”

  I don’t really want to be dragged into this. “It’s only a few more days crossing the Wall, yes? We’ll eat half rations until we come down from the mountains.”