The Return of Nightfall (9 page)

The movement seized Nightfall’s instant attention. He crouched, waiting.

Nothing happened.

A draft from the window stirred through Nightfall’s hair, cold against sweat-dampened skin. He remained in place, keeping his own breathing silent, his every muscle still. Like most predators, humans were drawn to motion.

Still, nothing moved. Only the musical sounds of the night touched his hearing. Nevertheless, Nightfall remained in position past those critical moments when most men believed themselves safe. Hopefully, his silence would convince the intruder that a guard had only glanced inside, then retreated.

The other took the bait. Nightfall again saw movement near the end of the king’s bed. With wary slowness, the chest’s lid lifted in increments.

Trained to caution, Nightfall barely noticed the pain cramping through his injured leg, the protest of sinews too long in one place. He kept his gaze locked on the activity, scarcely bothering even to blink.

At length, a head poked cautiously over the lowest edge of the chest to peer inside it.

Stock-still in the shadows, Nightfall now held the advantage. His eyes had adjusted to the scant moonlight funneling through a window set nearer to the stranger than himself. He watched as a darkly gloved hand settled onto the edge of the chest, and the other man’s head tipped downward to study the contents more closely. The profile gave Nightfall an image of shaggy, short-cut hair, a pointed nose, and a scraggle of beard.

His attention wholly on the stranger, Nightfall freed one of the throwing daggers at his wrist. The other man shifted, raising his head to sweep the room with a glance. Apparently blind to the lurking danger, he returned to his task. One hand dipped into the trunk to rummage through Edward’s personal effects.

“Be still,” Nightfall said.

The man made a graceful leap onto Edward’s bed. Nightfall threw the dagger. It grazed the fabric of the stranger’s breeks, just short of the inner thigh, then embedded in the wall with a satisfying thunk. Before it did, Nightfall snapped another hilt into his hand. “A finger’s breadth higher, you’re a eunuch. An arm’s length, you gurgle. Want to take your chances I missed on purpose?”

The man froze. His position now fully revealed him as a stranger: a young man only just mature enough for the beard. His gaze slipped toward the window, measuring.

Nightfall wanted to dare the boy to test his quickness against Nightfall’s, but he held his tongue. He had already pressed to the edge of his character. Instead, he moved his hand slightly to allow moonlight to gleam from the second blade. That would serve as warning enough. “What are you doing here?”

The boy licked his lips with nervous flicks of his tongue. He said nothing.

“Look,” Nightfall started, watching the other for the slightest tensing that might betray an attempt at escape. “I’m usually a tolerant man. But the folks in the common room won’t tell me anything, and I’m going to get answers one way or another.”

The stranger swallowed hard. “I . . . I . . . don’t know what you’re talking about.”

It was a lie, and Nightfall knew it. As always, he read the unspoken nuances in expression, gesture, posture, and movement as well as word. That skill had kept him alive every bit as much as his natal talent for weight shifting. “What happened in the He-Ain’t-Here tonight, and where is my master?”

“Your-your master?”

The boy was stalling, and Nightfall had no patience for it. “King Edward of Alyndar.” He added a deliberate knife edge to his voice. “Where is he? You’ve got to a ten count to answer.” He started immediately. “One. Two . . .”

“Wait!” the young man said with soft force. “Stop counting.”

“Three. Four . . .”

“All right!”

Now, Nightfall did stop. He gave the youngster a two count for throat clearing and fidgeting, then continued, “Five!”

The words tumbled out in a squeak. “There was a big fight here. I thought . . . I thought I could take some things without anyone noticing.”

Though a plausible explanation, it was nonetheless untrue. Nightfall sensed the deception as easily as breathing. “You work for the killers!”

“No!”

“What do they want from King Edward? Where did they take him?”

“I don’t know.” The stranger’s gaze gave him away, divided between Nightfall and the window. “I don’t know anything.”

The similarity between his claim and those in the common room clinched the connection. Nightfall’s free hand tightened, and he willed himself calm and in control, of himself and the situation. He wanted to warn the young man that talking served him better than silence, that Nightfall could inflict worse than the man or men his silence protected, that loyalty to these killers was not worth dying for. But those were the demon’s words and would have to remain unspoken. “Tell me,” he said with a slowness that verged on a Grifnalian drawl, “what you
do
know.”

A slight stiffening revealed the younger man’s intent a split second before he moved. Though there was plenty of time for Nightfall to hurl his dagger, he did not. He simply watched as the stranger made a wild leap for the window and surveyed lethal targets as he scrambled through it. In Nightfall guise, he would have had to kill the youngster, if only to maintain his reputation as a supernaturally informed demon: conscienceless evil with uncanny reflexes. Now, he relished the choice allowing him to let the boy go free. If he needed to, he could find the youth again and use whatever means necessary to force out the truth.

As Sudian, Nightfall flipped the dagger and replaced it in its sheath. Crossing the room, he eased the other blade from the wall, still pinning a scrap of fabric from the stranger’s breeks. He replaced that, too, attention on the window. The intruder might return, or another come, to find whatever had drawn the first. Keeping his head low, he glanced outside. Darkness faded before the rising sun, and rainbow bands of color touched the far horizon. Candlelight flickered in the nearby cottage windows.

Swiftly, Nightfall changed his clothes, then pawed through Edward’s things searching for the object that might have drawn the thief. It seemed like a hopeless task. Edward always brought more gear with him than Nightfall could imagine needing. On their last excursion, he had made it his mission to surreptitiously lighten the load, while Edward insisted on crafting palisade defenses every time they stopped to camp. He shoved aside myriad pieces of heavy armor, creams and vials he now recognized as toiletries, and a mass of purple and silver clothing. Smaller objects sifted through the mass to clunk against the wooden bottom. He examined these: a comb, a brush, a hand mirror, and a ring.

Nightfall dropped to his haunches and shook his head. He could only guess at the purposes of the thief, the kidnappers, and the killers. Too many ideas bombarded his mind, and he needed more information to sensibly sort them. Though he dreaded it, his conversation with Duke Varsah might give him some clues. When the duke had taken then-Prince Edward prisoner, Nightfall had made a desperate and wild run through the dungeons to save him. Only later he discovered highborns do not imprison royalty in dungeons but in furnished quarters that could dazzle a peasant family. Ignorance of the upper class turned his considerations of this new crime into unsophisticated nonsense. If the thugs intended assassination, they would surely have left Edward’s body in the tavern or, at least, in some highly prominent place.

Nightfall wound the ring through his fingers as he considered. Though crafted of fine gold, with small rich-purple stones nestled on either side of a flat setting, it did not seem as valuable as most of the items in the chest they had brought to appease the duke of Schiz. Its contents included platinum coins and diamond jewelry, a far more likely target for thieves; but the guards had proclaimed it safe.

Nightfall examined the ring more closely. A competent jeweler had drizzled and engraved the flattened central surface to form an intricate picture of Alyndar’s mailed fist clutching a hammer. Six tiny amethysts sat in semicircular patterns on either side of the image. He had seen Edward wear the ring to court or affairs of state, though he had never looked at it closely before. Now, guessing it to be the thief’s target, he pocketed it.

“Are you ready in there, sir?” The voice of the burli est guard wafted in to Sudian.

To meet with that bastard, Varsah?
Nightfall readjusted his fresh tunic.
Never.
He headed toward the door, smiling sweetly. “I’m finished. Sorry I took so long, but you did ask me to check on our possessions.” He stepped back into the common room. The bullnecked guard and his partner met him nearly at the opening, while the other two stood with the crowd behind the bar. “I think I foiled a thief,” he said, not bothering with details. “You should probably keep a guard on that locked chest in the second room.”

Gil finally spoke coherently, “I had a bouncer stationed there until the guards herded him in here.” He glanced toward Hervandis, a solid, no-necked Schizian who could not turn his head without moving at the waist. “I could put him back on duty.”

Nightfall added ice to his tone. “I’d rather one of the town guard. Someone brave enough not to cower behind his own ass, deaf and blind, while assassins slaughter innocents in the tavern.”

Gil clamped his mouth into an angry white line, though he said nothing more.

The first guard who had spoken to Nightfall moved toward the center of the room, barely hiding his own smile. “We’ll get right on that, sir. Thank you.”

It still felt strange to Nightfall to have men scurrying to obey his orders, without the need for intimidation. Though he liked the power, he hoped he would not have to become used to it. He preferred the quieter, more unobtrusive role of adviser at the king’s side. As much as he appreciated his freedom, he did not enjoy having people parsing his every utterance, nor the realization that any mistake could cause ill will to an entire kingdom, perhaps even a war. He looked forward to handing over the mantle of control to Edward or, at worst, to his successor. “Then I’m ready to go. Who’s my escort?”

The guard’s smaller partner stepped up. “Me, sir.”

Nightfall gestured to the door, then headed toward it himself, the other man rushing to his side.

They stepped out into a morning that smelled of cook fires and lamp oil. People shouted to one another across distances, the common folk as yet oblivious to the goings-on in the He-Ain’t-Here the previous night. Nightfall knew that, once the guards released the tavern’s patrons, the news would spread swiftly. Schiz’ lowest class had already adjusted its patterns to suit the tragedy, and the effects would ripple outward and upward to every corner of the city. It wasn’t every day a king’s entourage got murdered and the man himself went missing, and most would not even know the best way to react.

For now, the chilly walk through threadlike city streets felt strange at the side of a guardsman. Nightfall fell into step beside the smaller man, observing how the bronze-colored stripes on his cuffs and sleeves bunched with every step. Sandy hair fell in a straight sweep to his ears, sliding onto his forehead at intervals. The cool air turned his cheeks to pink circles, and he kept his mouth clamped tightly closed.

Shortly, they came to the cobbled streets surrounding the duke’s citadel. Neatly tended plots held scraggly vegetables, their stalks touched brown with autumn. The flower beds lay barren, the dying stems plucked and bulbs buried deep within the dark soil. From the center rose the stone-block citadel that served as a home for the duke and his family. Some of the lower-story windows were shuttered, and others bore glass to keep out intruders and the elements. Most of the second-story windows lay open, some with lacy or heavy patterned curtains fluttering in the breeze. Lanterns lit several of the rooms.

The guard led Nightfall to the front porch and its heavy oak door. He knocked vigorously.

The door eased open. A young, female face poked out, round-eyed and heavy-featured. When she caught sight of the guard and his companion in Alyndarian silks, she curtsied. “What can I do for you, sirs?”

The guard spoke for them both. “Please inform the duke that Sudian . . .” He hesitated, apparently expecting Nightfall to fill in the rest of his name. Alyndarian highborns usually had a family name or, at least, finished their formal title with the name of their fathers and “’s son.”

Nightfall said nothing. Coming from the lowest of the low, he had no family name, could not even begin to guess the identity of his father.

The guard finished anyway, “. . . adviser to
missing
King Edward . . .” He stressed the significant word, surely to direct the girl to inform the duke about the problem as well. “. . . is here.”

It seemed odd to Nightfall that the duke might not know about such a significant happening in his domain. Word spread through the underworld in moments, and any ruler worth his weight in salt should have equally valuable sources. Clearly, his guard force had learned of it and come to investigate. Then, Nightfall remembered how the guards had peered through the doorways during their last conference, clearly worried he might let slip their inability to stop his crazed and fruitless rush through the empty dungeon. They had not reported it to Varsah, presumably because he overreacted to mistakes. Nightfall could see how the guards and servants might hesitate to awaken their lord, even with news of import.

The girl seemed to take no notice of the oddly emphasized word. She simply curtsied again. “Follow me, please.” She led them through the familiar wide entry hall to the immaculate, white-walled meeting room with its three doorless entries. “Please make yourself comfortable. I’ll let Duke Varsah know you’re here.”

Nightfall glanced around the room. It looked much as he remembered it from his last visit. A fire danced on an ashy pile of logs in the fireplace, sending shadows flickering along the rectangular-cut blocks that formed its outline. Occasionally, wood shifted, and sparks exploded from the movement. The mantel held an array of intricately carved warrior figurines engaged in a miniature battle. Above them hung a flattering portrait of Duke Varsah dressed in glimmering bronze mail, draped flamboyantly in a cape of midnight black. His figure seemed more muscled than stout, the jowls and wrinkles smoothed from his face, and his frizzled graying hair a youthful black. Cradling his helmet, he stared into the distance, his chin raised regally and his dark eyes strong and full of wisdom. Framed with notched daggers, the picture stood out boldly, a remarkable accent to an otherwise drab room.