Something had changed with the Primes.
Before the dome had gone up, Maarkov had never seen one Prime leading more than ten or fifteen strega. Now the creatures carried squads of thirty, sometimes forty, walking corpses behind them. They roved the city like patrolling scavengers, picking over every sign of life and movement.
Maarkov had abandoned Tam’s old hideout on the day of the fire. Huddling underground, waiting for the Primes to find him was not in his nature. Mobility was the secret to survival in any fight, and there had never been a fight more desperate in Maarkov’s long existence.
He had always been a blade, and blades were forged for war.
The red haze hanging over the city tinted everything the crimson hue of blood. Even the Merchant Heights, full of gentle hillside streets and the mansions of wealthy tradesmen, looked ghastly under the dome. The sun, clear through the tinted magical shield, was warped as if through the edge of a far-lens.
Maarkov clung to the spire atop the bell tower with one hand, both feet planted on the sloped roof. He extended his arm and leaned over the ground, peering at the neat cobblestones below. Seven stories was enough to break bones, but no fear tickled the muscles of Maarkov’s stomach. He loosened his grip by degrees until his entire weight hung on the hooked tips of two fingers. His muscles never trembled.
The wind blew the ends of the scarf covering Maarkov’s head. Only his eyes were unwrapped, leaving his face veiled and his bald pate covered. Supple, thin swordsman’s gloves covered his hands, and a close-fitting shirt clung to his wiry form. He checked the straps on his belt for the tenth time—both his sword and the canteen containing the soulsparks were secure. His four daggers—belt, both wrists, and left ankle—were strapped into their respective sheaths. The armor he’d stolen, a Galanian brigandine designed for mobility, hugged his torso. He would have been sweating in the heat if his body was capable of the act.
The smell of salt water and fish came with the sea breeze. Gulls cawed in the distance, their cries somehow ghostly under the red sky. Maarkov closed his eyes, listening with every fiber of his senses.
Gulls. Wind. A distant rattling of wood in time with the breeze.
Have Maaz’s search parties raided this district yet? Plenty of debris littering the streets, but nothing is moving out there.
Maarkov peered to the north, to the castle on the island heights. The beam still shone from a tower, spreading at the apex of the dome like water over a curved surface. Its source glimmered in the distance, flickering as streams of smoke trailed from old fires still smoldering in parts of the trade district.
“Now’s the time, Maarkov, old boy.” He’d taken to muttering to himself since the day he’d escaped his brother. Being alone was…difficult. “Low tide is coming soon.”
He checked the straps on his shoulders. The pack was another lucky find in the deserted halls of Shundov. It was small enough to be convenient, and it left his hands free. Navigating the rooftops and back alleys of the fallen city was an full-body endeavor, and a large satchel was illogical for moving with speed and stealth.
A blade needed to be swift and decisive.
With a quick, unnecessary breath, Maarkov let go of the spire. He sprang from the curved rooftop, sailing to the sloped roof of the building attached to the tower. His legs took the force, and he sprang into another roll over his shoulder, spreading out the energy of the fall. Rolling to his feet, he broke into a sprint over the roof of the building. The wind whipped his scarf out behind him, making a silky, flapping noise.
The trip to the street involved hopping to a windowsill one level below, springing backward to a wall another level below that one, which would have taken Maarkov’s wind if he needed to breathe, and rolling over the edge to land on the cobblestones. He sprang into a roll and came to his feet upon landing. Even with his preternatural strength and speed, his body had to compensate for the force of the leap.
Didn’t tangle my sword with my legs that time. I’m getting better.
Maarkov sprinted down the gentle, curving streets of the Merchant Heights. He leaned into his run, pushing his body to its limits, and stretched his legs for speed. Keeping the impacts on his knees to a reasonable level had been difficult the first time he’d pushed, and the ghost of pain still pinched with every step of his left foot. It was no use wasting a Soulspark to heal the damage—he only had three lights remaining in the canteen. When they were gone, his body would rot until he was little better than the strega.
Traveling on the streets was risky at any speed. If he ran into a Prime and a squad of corpses, he’d be forced to risk himself in another fight or reveal his position to Maaz. Three more of the lanky monstrosities had fallen to his blade since the dome’s appearance, but each one had been a calculated and decisive attack. He could be swarmed and overwhelmed despite his training and supernatural advantages.
Any blade could be broken if misused.
The silhouettes of fancy villas and gates of city manors flashed by in Maarkov’s sight. Keeping to the gentle curve of the road was tricky at high speeds—a wrong step might send him tumbling into a wall, and even his bones would break if enough force was applied at the right angle. He ran on his toes, using his arms to keep his body upright. His ears filled with the wind of his passage.
The ground climbed on a gentle slope toward the central hill of the Merchant Heights. The district was the highest ground on the eastern side of the city, divided by the sluggish river flowing through the center of Shundov. It was the southernmost inhabited part of the city, built near the harbor’s Trade District so the city’s merchant lords wouldn’t have to travel far from the warehouses and storefronts they managed. It was home to wrought-iron gates and statued colonnades, manors like mini-castles, and parks with manicured rows of vegetation surrounding plaques dedicated to this or that honorable such-and-such.
It all blurred past Maarkov, there and swallowed again by the crimson murk.
There was less debris in the streets than in other parts of the city. No one lived north of the Merchant Heights—no one except the residents of the Gutters, and thick walls kept the poorer residents from dirtying the heights with their presence. Evacuees would have poured westward from the Gutters, flooding past Temple Street, through the Trade District, and into the harbor.
Hopefully some had escaped. Life in the Gutters was bad enough. With the luck of the gods, some of those poor souls would have escaped to see something else before they died.
Tam and his crew made it out—I can take solace in that, at least.
The central hill of the three which made up the Merchant Heights was the tallest, if not by much. The merchant princes of Shundov, including the hopefully-late Irhan-il-Farhad, organized their hierarchy the same way the nobility had. One measured their status by their distance from the muck, and so the richer tradesmen lived on the highest plots of land. The largest manor house, as far as Maarkov could tell, sat at the very top of the central rise. It was a sprawling compound for an urban building, and it could have housed more than forty families inside its walled gardens and tasteful rooms.
The gate stood open now, an abandoned carriage sitting by the entrance. Its hitch was free of animals, and a busted chest littered the ground beside it. Filmy dresses stuck from the corner of the chest, and pieces of fabric had fluttered across the street, blown by the wind. The tinted light muddied their colors to various shades of red, but they had probably once been beautiful.
Maarkov blew through the entrance and into the courtyard, sending the open gate rattling on its wrought-iron hinges. It made a rusty chatter in his wake, but he was hurtling through the yard too quickly for the sound to bother him. One corner of the courtyard wall had been under construction, and a stack of bricks and lumber near the southeastern corner provided an easy platform. With his speed and momentum propelling him, Maarkov hopped onto the pile and pushed off with preternatural strength, leaping for the roof of the empty stables.
He hit with teeth-jarring force, but another roll allowed him to keep his feet rather than hurtle over the other side of the roof. Keeping his momentum, he ran for the side of the manor house proper and leapt for a second story window. His fingers gripped the edge with plenty of strength, and from there, it was a short climb up two more levels to the roof of the manor itself.
The run should have tired him, but fatigue was long in his past. Like pain.
Like shame.
The voice came when he least expected. It sounded like his own voice, like the inner voice he sometimes entertained in his quietest moments. But this one was a twisted version of his own timbre, its words a constant stream of poison. It had come with greater regularity in the days since he’d left his brother, prodding him to face the choices of his past. He accepted the little stabs of guilt. He deserved them.
From the manor on the hill, the entirety of the Merchant Heights was open to him. Curving streets hugged the hillsides, meandering between urban villas and manicured parks. To the northeast, the smoking ruins of the Gutters lay in a depression, cut off from the Merchant Heights by an ancient retaining wall and a newer, higher fortification the residents had paid to install themselves. From this side of the wall, it appeared no more than chest-high, and its top was decorated with little statues all along its length. From the other side, it would be an impassible barrier covered in slime and creepers.
To the southeast of the Gutters, which made it east of the Merchant Heights, lay an ancient section of the city long taken by the soft ground and constant motion of the waves. Shundovians referred to the district as the Sunken Halls, though Maarkov had never seen the name on any official map. The low-lying section of the city had either sunk into the ground or been taken by the ocean at some point in the city’s long past, and the residents of old had abandoned it to its fate.
The same retaining wall separating the Gutters from the Heights kept the lavish homes of the city’s tradesmen from sliding into the Sunken Halls, and the Kings of Shundovia had long since extended the outer wall around the flooded district, but the ruined section of the city remained. It was a wide expanse of muddy, brackish water with cracked, mossy buildings rising from its depths. On clear days, one could spot the outlines of construction lying just under the surface and pick out the lay of the streets by the shadows huddled under the water. The Sunken Halls were notorious for wrecking fishermen, and the only people who called it home were those who hid from the authorities. Even the residents of the Gutters stayed out of the Sunken Halls.
There were narrow tracks of muddy ground toward the center of the Sunken Halls, though they were covered during high tide. Sinkholes and stagnant pools dotted the muck, and the flooded parts of the district were treacherous with wild currents and submerged hazards. Despite the dangers, plenty of unsavory characters used the Sunken Halls to hide or transport contraband, and the tide was notorious for washing fresh corpses from the forest of mossy ruins.
The Sunken Halls marked the eastern edge of the city. Beyond its flooded expanse was the outer wall, built and reinforced by the Empire on the first patch of solid ground. The eastern causeways lay past the wall, and all of Eldath beckoned from the horizon. Maarkov would never see it. The thought brought an odd twinge of regret, and then a surge of determination on its heels.
This is the last place for me. The last place for you, too, brother, until the gods condemn us to the Six Hells.
From his vantage atop the manor, it appeared as if Maaz’s dome extended to the waves themselves. The transparent barrier tinted and bent the light coming through, however, and it was difficult to be certain. Some of part of him had hoped to see a tinge of blue shining from somewhere near the water once he’d climbed to the roof, but he was getting used to disappointment.
The Sunken Halls were the most likely spot for a break in the magical barrier. Maarkov had learned by chance that the dome was vulnerable to irregularities in the city wall—the machicolations had been left open, and he’d dropped something through. It only followed that more holes existed, and there was no place in Shundov more irregular than the Sunken Halls.
Under the crimson-tinted light, it appeared a ruined, hellish landscape submerged in blood.
“A fitting place to go poking around, old boy,” he muttered to himself. The words seemed obnoxious in the windy silence. “I wonder if the First Hell will look anything like it.”
There were docks on the lowest end of the Gutters extending into the flooded streets of the ruined district. With the gods’ own luck, maybe Maarkov would find an abandoned raft tied to one of them. The ruined structures rising from the water would be too slippery and treacherous to climb, despite all the practice he’d had at leaping between rooftops in the city. The last thing he wanted was to swim the streets—he could be sucked into a sinkhole and trapped forever. His only real option was to head down the street to the retaining wall, enter the Gutters, and make his way to the edge of the Sunken Halls from there.
Just as he made to hop down from the roof, a flutter of movement caught his eye.
He flung himself to his belly, moving before the realization had fully formed. Crawling to the edge of the roof, he peeked over the side again and scanned the quiet streets of the Merchant Heights. For ten breaths, nothing moved but bushes in the breeze, but a distant figure emerged from a gate down the hill. It moved with furtive motions, darting across the street and into a walled garden before disappearing from sight.
That was…alive. Someone still lives inside these walls!
Doubt crawled into Maarkov’s belly. It could be a trick—Maaz could be using his magic to conjure illusions. How could anyone have survived the attack? The fire? The roving patrols of Prime Corpses and strega? It was unthinkable.
And yet, that person was alive.
“You know what your eyes are telling you, old boy.” Maarkov’s mouth was dry—he hadn’t drank water in days. “It’s not unthinkable that someone survived, is it?”
If survivors were huddling in one of these deserted manors, it wouldn’t be long before Maaz’s creatures rooted them out and made strega from their bodies. There had been days following the initial attack when pockets of life had been found and extinguished. The cries had echoed throughout the city, even when the fires still raged. Maarkov hadn’t seen these groups being found and killed, but he’d heard them screaming. After the battle on the hill and the sudden increase in the number of corpses patrolling the streets, only silence had filled the air.
“You have to find them,” he muttered to himself. “Find them and take them outside the walls with you.”
Even as he said the words, his eyes returned to the mossy stone forest of the Sunken Halls. He itched to find an escape route, and exploring the district would take preparation. He could only explore the waterways under the cover of darkness, and staging a boat for the trip had to be done in advance. Allowing two nights for exploration—make it three for good measure—the endeavor would cost half a ten-day week, maybe more.
Maaz’s forces grew by the day, and the gods only knew what magic he was conjuring.
The last time Maarkov had tried to help, only a tithe of the people he’d tried to save had survived. Truth be told, he owed the lives he’d unconsciously credited himself with saving to Anna. It had been her charisma and reputation that convinced the people to abandon everything and convoy out of the city. Maarkov’s next attempt at the harbor had been a complete failure. Every soul who’d stepped on the quay with him that day had gone to meet the gods.
Hells, he’d thought he spotted one of them marching around as a strega, but he hadn’t been sure it wasn’t just a waking nightmare. Those had been coming with more frequency, too. The memories of the screams from the slaughter in the harbor drifted again to his ears, and he clenched his eyes shut until they faded.
Trying to save anyone is a fool’s errand. It will end like it always does—with death. If you truly cared, you’d leave them to their fate and concentrate on killing. At least you’re good at that.
Maarkov didn’t realize his fingertips were digging into the roof until the tiles gave creaks of protest under his gloves. With a cleansing breath, he released the tension in his grip. He laid his head in the crook of his left arm, breathing into the space, though he didn’t need to breathe. His right hand drifted to the hilt of his sword, and by slow degrees, he silenced that nagging, poison-filled voice in the back of his mind. The words that came unbidden to his lips sealed his decision.
“Steel is nothing without heart.”
With an irritated grumble, Maarkov flowed to his feet and hopped down from the roof.
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