Book 2: Chapter Eight

They arrived in High Cove after dark. Ellerie was riding at the front of the procession with Boktar and Venni when they reached the outskirts. There was nobody out on the streets, but lights could be seen through windows. As they rode past a cottage, an old woman opened her shutters to stare out at the noise, then closed them with a bang.

“This is strange,” Venni said. “I’ve never seen it like this. Where is everyone?”

“Asleep?” Boktar guessed, though his voice was uneasy.

“It’s late, but it’s not that late. I suppose there aren’t that many houses out here. It should be different when we reach the old city.”

They continued on their way, but now Ellerie glanced from side to side, looking for any sign of people. They passed a tavern and she stopped her horse to peer through the open door. From where she sat, she could only see the tavern keeper and one patron at the bar. There was no window, so she couldn’t tell if anyone else was inside, but she didn’t hear any talking or laughing.

On the next block down, a man scurried across the street in front of them.

“Hello?” Venni called out, but the man didn’t stop. He continued down a side street until he was out of sight.

Corec rode up to join them. “It’s quiet out for this time of night.”

“Maybe there were rumors about the imps?” Venni said. “They don’t usually attack people, but that doesn’t mean you’d want to meet one in a dark alley.”

The breeze shifted, and brought with it the scent of sea air.

Corec said, “If we can smell the harbor, we must be getting close to the old city. I’ve only been here a few times though, so I’m not sure I remember the way in the dark.”

“It’s just up ahead,” Venni said.

A few blocks later, they passed through an archway in what had once been a stone defensive wall, though the structure was crumbling now. On the other side of the arch, the street changed from granite pavers to rounded cobblestone. The group dismounted so the horses would have an easier time on the unfamiliar surface.

“Does anyone know of a good inn?” Ellerie asked.

“There are some closer to the baron’s palace, if you want to follow me a bit farther,” Venni said. “I should probably head there now to find out what’s happening.”

Just then, a group of men carrying torches and lanterns turned onto the street and headed toward them. They waited until the men stopped in front of them.

The one in the lead, who wore a constable’s uniform, said, “You can’t be out on the streets after dark. There’s a curfew in place.”

“A curfew?” Corec asked. “Why?”

“Haven’t you heard? Demons are killing people!”

Venni said, “Duke Voss of Tyrsall sent me to help. What’s going on? I was told there were imps killing stray dogs.”

“That’s how it started, but then old Marlo, the baron’s wizard, tried to track them down. When they found him the next morning, he was in pieces.”

“Imps can’t do that.”

“It’s not imps. People have seen things walking the streets at night, things as big as humans, but they don’t look human. They killed some beggars too, and after that, the baron said nobody can be out after dark unless they’re in an armed group.” He motioned to his companions, all dressed as constables or guardsmen. “We’re trying to hunt them.”

“Well, I’m armed, and I need to speak to Baron Anders as soon as possible.” Venni glanced Corec’s way. “I may need to take you up on your offer to help.”

“Of course.”

Ellerie tightened her lips. She knew Corec was making that decision for himself, and would expect the others to decide on their own, but she doubted Venni would interpret it that way.

Throughout the trip, it had been apparent that the other woman considered Corec to be in charge of everyone in the group besides herself. To his credit, Corec always conferred with everyone when a question came up, but that hadn’t helped. Venni would make a decision or suggestion, then ask Corec what he thought. Even if he had little to say on the topic, Venni would wait until everyone else had spoken, then look to Corec for a final answer. He would simply repeat the most persuasive argument, regardless of who’d presented it—which was how they’d made group decisions before Venni joined them.

However, since she always waited for Corec to agree, it gave the impression that the others were merely advising him while he was making the decisions. It was done subtly enough that Boktar had told Ellerie she was imagining things, but it kept happening, and the more it happened, the more frustrated she grew.

Katrin and Bobo seemed content to follow Corec’s lead, and Shavala only chimed in if she had a suggestion. She never seemed particularly interested in making the decisions, and often didn’t even appear to be paying attention to the discussion. Treya would continue debating if she didn’t agree with a decision, but even she seemed to believe that Corec’s statements were a decision.

Ellerie figured it all came down to that warden nonsense. Venni clearly considered Yelena to be in charge of her own group, and she expected Corec to play a similar role. The sooner they found a way to end the binding spell, the better.

“We should all go,” Ellerie said pointedly, just to remind them that she was still there. Agreeing with Corec might play into Venni’s plan, but at least her voice would be heard. And in any case, disagreeing would be petty, at least until they found out whether these people actually needed their help.

“I can take you to the palace,” one of the guardsmen said. “If you were sent by Duke Voss, the baron may be willing to grant you an audience tonight.”

“Then lead on,” Venni said.

They followed the guard east, down a narrow street with old buildings that were four or five stories tall, built so close to each other that they were touching. Shops and other businesses lined the first floor of the buildings, though most were closed for the night. The lights shining through the upper-floor windows suggested apartments. There were more people out and about here, which helped to relieve the eerie feeling they’d had since arriving, but any time they encountered someone, the guard stopped to warn them to stay inside.

“This is the oldest street in the city,” Venni said. “If we followed it all the way, we’d reach the docks, but we’ll turn north before then to go to the palace.”

“I didn’t see it when I was here,” Corec said. “Is it really a palace?”

“Anders has High Cove all to himself, which makes him the richest baron in the kingdom. The only reason the Duke of the North doesn’t make his home here is that when the duchy was established, High Cove was just a small fishing town, and the first duke thought Ironholt was more important with all those mines. And it probably was, but the mines had to sell their ore, and High Cove was the nearest port, whether you go by road or river barge.”

“You know a lot about Tyrsall’s history for someone who grew up in Matagor.”

“After a few decades, you start to look for new things to occupy your time. I like to read. It’s probably Yelena’s influence.”

They reached the palace fifteen minutes later. It wasn’t as large as the Duke of Tyrsall’s palace or the Glass Palace in Terevas, but it was still a respectably sized building. They stopped in the courtyard.

“Are we all going in?” Boktar asked.

“That’s too many people, considering how late it is and that the baron doesn’t know we’re here,” Venni suggested. “Corec and I can talk to him and find out what’s going on, if the rest of you can watch the horses.”

Ellerie clenched her fists, but before she could respond, Corec said, “I think we should all hear what he has to say.”

“I’ll watch the horses,” Bobo said. “Perhaps Shavala could keep me company to help manage them?”

The dorvasta nodded in agreement.

Venni stared at them for a moment. “All right.” She turned to the guard. “If that’s acceptable?”

“I can’t speak for the baron, but if he’s willing to see anyone this late, I’m sure it’ll be fine.”

The guard stopped to speak to two other guardsmen at the entrance, then led the group into a long entry room lined with marble columns. Once inside, he whispered something to a servant.

The servant said, “Please wait here in the vestibule. I’ll inform the steward of your arrival.”

“This is a vestibule?” Corec said to Katrin after the man had left. “It’s a third the size of my father’s manor house. Our vestibule was a mud room.”

Ellerie shot him a look. She’d once heard him introduce himself as being of House Tarwen, which Boktar had suggested was a barony in Larso, but he’d never otherwise spoken of his family in her presence.

A tall, gray-haired man dressed in something resembling a butler’s suit came in. “I am Sedwin, Chief Steward to Baron Anders. You arrived sooner than we expected. The baron will see you now, in the Council Chambers.”

They followed him out of the vestibule and down an ornate hallway that ended in a wide set of double doors. Inside was a corpulent, balding man dressed in finery.

“Ahh, Miss Venni, welcome back to High Cove,” the man said. “I wasn’t expecting your ship to arrive for another two days. But where is Miss Yelena?”

Venni and Corec glanced at each other.

“A ship, Lord Anders?” Venni asked the man in surprise. “Yelena’s coming here?”

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“You didn’t know? Ahh, I see. You must be the help she referred to her in her first note. When people started dying, I wrote to her again. I received a response back a few days ago that she was on her way. The duke found a ship for her.”

Venni nodded. “Could you tell me what’s going on? The note we received—the first note—didn’t include many details.”

“That’s always the trouble with pigeon post; pigeons can’t carry much. About a month ago, people started finding dead cats and dogs in the street, with bite and claw marks. Nobody thought much about it at first, but it kept happening, and the information eventually reached the Chief Constable, who informed me. There was a wizard I employed, a man named Marlo, who said the marks looked like imp attacks. Now, I don’t have any experience with any sort of demons, imps or otherwise, and I certainly don’t want them in my city. Marlo thought he could find them and take care of them, but when he didn’t have any luck after the first few nights, I figured I should send for help. That’s when I wrote to the duke.”

“But now there are real demons in the city?”

Anders shrugged. “Nobody knows for sure. People are panicking and seeing demons in every shadow. But something killed poor old Marlo, and while I don’t know much about imps, I doubt they can…do what was done to him. There have been more victims each night. Always after dark, and always someone alone and defenseless. Last night, it was a fellow who’d gone to a tavern with a group, but then got drunk and decided to leave by himself.”

“Is there any pattern to the victims or the locations?”

“You’d have to ask the Chief Constable that.”

“I’ll talk to him in the morning, and then we’ll see if we can do anything to help.”

#

Razai rode down the dark, empty street, wondering why it was so quiet. She’d narrowly avoided running into a group of armed men with torches—they looked too much like a mob for her taste. Besides them, she’d only seen a few people since arriving in the city, all of them in a rush to get to wherever they were going.

Danger, the whispers said in her mind.

Razai brought her horse to a halt and looked all around, but didn’t see anyone. Danger? she asked. What sort of danger?

There was silence for a moment, then, Cousins.

You mean demons? Here? Who? Why?

Little cousins and big cousins.

Little cousins meant imps, but big cousins could mean almost anyone. Then again, crossing over to the mortal world was difficult. She couldn’t manage it herself—when her father wanted her to come hellside, he had to expend the effort to bring her over. The more powerful a demon was, the harder it became to cross the barrier between the two worlds, so it was more efficient for him to send her back and forth than to cross over himself.

Where? she asked.

Around. Back and forth. Side to side. Ahead.

The demons had moved around a lot, but the whispers wanted her to continue forward, toward the docks. The whispers—whatever they were—didn’t understand cardinal directions, but they could point her the right way as long as the target was interesting enough and had been in the area recently. Razai had never been able to figure out what the whispers did and didn’t find interesting.

It was that talent, as unreliable as it was, that made her a valuable asset to her father—though in all the time they’d known each other, he’d never shown any interest in how she did what she did.

What about our target? she asked.

Left.

Can you tell me anything more?

Death.

She thought for a moment. The whispers hadn’t shown any sign of losing interest in her quarry, so finding the warden again could wait until morning. She needed to know what the demons were doing in the city. Track the cousins, she said. But I need to find a place for my horse first.

An hour later, after a stop to get a room at an inn, she was once again following the whispers’ directions, this time on foot so that she’d have an easier time hiding or changing disguises. She checked her current guise to make sure it was still in place. She’d burned through three of them staying at the same inns as her quarry on the trip north. She didn’t want to repeat the disguises in case he and his friends grew suspicious about why the same person kept showing up. She’d started covering up her daggers with the illusory disguises too, so nobody could see them unless she drew them. The blades were distinctive enough to draw attention otherwise.

After following the whispers almost as far as the harbor, she caught sight of what she was looking for. An imp flew erratically into the street ahead of Razai. It was nearly two feet tall, with green skin, and had horns growing from the side of its head. Razai froze in place—imps could see in the dark as well as she could. Luckily, it didn’t look her way. Instead, it turned in the same direction she’d been heading, and continued down the street. She waited until it was farther ahead of her, then followed silently. Its bat-like wings pumped rapidly as it tried to stay aloft, but it had to stop and rest every so often, allowing her to keep up. Imps were deceptively agile, but they were still ungainly in flight.

Finally, it reached what looked like an old warehouse, but instead of going inside, it landed on a railing in front of the building.

Razai went invisible so she wouldn’t be seen by anyone else who might be approaching. She disliked using her invisibility spell since moving any faster than a crawl would cause the illusion to dissipate, but sometimes it was the best choice. Her disguises were more robust, so she preferred to rely on those when she could.

While she watched, two other imps joined the first one. The new ones looked darker than the first, but there wasn’t enough light to see what color they were. One had fur and the other didn’t, and neither had horns.

Imps from three different tribes wouldn’t have crossed over together unless someone more powerful had forced them to, but who?

The three hissed and chattered back and forth with each other, but Razai wasn’t close enough to hear what they were saying. She started to inch forward, slowly enough to avoid disrupting her illusion spell, but then a much larger figure approached—six feet tall, and wearing a cloak.

With clawed talons, the figured removed its hood to reveal a demon foot soldier, its leathery face twisted into a permanent snarl.

“Did you find her?” it growled in the demonic tongue. “Is she here yet?”

“Can’t find her, Masster,” one of the imps replied.

Another demon came out of the warehouse, this one taller and with large wings and a thick tail. Razai recognized the type—the wings wouldn’t allow it to fly, but it could glide short distances if the air was hot enough. It had hands instead of claws, and wore a sword belted to its side.

“Then go find more bait,” the new one said in a raspy voice.

The first demon growled again in response, and then it and the imps left in different directions while the second demon returned to the building. Razai held still as one of the imps passed within a few feet of her. Once it was out of sight, she allowed her invisibility spell to fade, then ducked behind a building so she couldn’t be seen by anyone near the warehouse.

“Tifwa, can you hear me?” she whispered.

After a moment, there was a faint shimmering and the imp appeared, hovering in the air before her. He was a foot and a half tall, with awkward-looking wings like the others, but his leathery skin was bright red and he had a third eye on his forehead that constantly peered around in different directions.

“Razsai!” the little imp hissed, his wings fluttering until he found a perch on a hitching post.

“Keep it down!” she said. “Someone will hear you.”

“Masster wishes to know how the hunt goes.”

“How it goes? They never do anything. They go from one place to another, and I follow. Well, sometimes they do something, and I have to sit back and watch. Why am I even here? It’s pointless!”

“Because Masster said sso.”

“That’s not what I meant. I’m supposed to watch him, not kill him. Fine. But why? Is he a threat? Is he supposed to lead me somewhere?”

“Masster says Razsai has to watch the warden because Masster says so.”

Tifwa was stupid, even for an imp.

Razai just shook her head. “Anyway, that’s not why I called you here. Why are there demons in High Cove? Did Vatarxis send them?”

“Demons?” Tifwa peered around fearfully.

“And imps. I saw at least three tribes.”

“Why they here?”

“That’s what I just asked you! Did Father send them?”

“No no no no no. Not Masster.”

“If he didn’t send them, then who did?”

Tifwa’s mouth opened, but it wasn’t his voice that came out. “Razai!” Vatarxis said. “Why did you summon Tifwa?”

“Talk quietly! I’m in High Cove and there are demons and imps here.”

“What is High Cove?”

Vatarxis had few dealings in the mortal world, since he mostly depended on Razai to act as his agent. As far as she knew, he hadn’t crossed the barrier in over a century, when her human mother had been killed by an angry mob for having a demonborn child. Vatarxis had shown up then, slaughtering the villagers and taking Razai hellside for the first time. It was also the first time she’d met him.

“It’s a city five hundred miles north of Tyrsall,” she replied.

The voice was silent for a full minute before speaking again. “The demons serve Saristix. He’s trying to lure Yelena out of her lair.”

“Yelena? Isn’t she one of the wardens?”

“Yes. He can’t get to her in Tyrsall. She’s warded the entire city.”

“If he’s hunting wardens, won’t he be after the new one?”

“I doubt Saristix knows about him.”

“Is he going to cross over?”

“And spend all his strength passing through the barrier so he can risk his own life against her? He’s a fool, but he’s not that much of a fool. He sent a few servants, who’ll probably fail, like usual. The way to defeat a warden is with overwhelming strength, but he got lucky once with a small strike force, so now he keeps trying to do it again. I don’t know why he bothers.”

Razai knew. Saristix’s power had faded over the centuries, leaving him as one of the weaker demon lords, with few soldiers at his command. If he could eliminate the wardens, he could carve out a kingdom in the mortal world and not have to constantly contend with the other lords. But that wasn’t what Vatarxis had meant—he simply didn’t like the mortal world enough to expend much energy on it.

“What should I do?”

“Do? This has nothing to do with your task. I don’t care what happens to Yelena. Her warding spells killed the last two messengers I tried to send her. Your only concern is the new boy.”

Razai shook her head, not sure she’d heard that right. Vatarxis had tried to contact a warden?

“But what am I supposed to do with him?” she asked. “You don’t want him dead, and you haven’t given me any other instructions.”

“It’ll be more amusing if you figure that out on your own.”

Tifwa shimmered and disappeared from sight, pulled back hellside.

#

The next morning, Corec and Katrin joined the group for breakfast in the inn’s common room.

“Has anyone seen Venni?” Corec asked.

“She left for the constabulary building about an hour ago,” said Treya, who’d stayed at the inn rather than trying to find the Three Orders chapter house in the middle of the night in an unfamiliar city.

“Is she going to wait for Yelena, or try to fight the demons herself?” Ellerie asked.

A young man in laborer’s clothing at the next table over jerked back in surprise and looked their way before returning to his meal.

“If she fights, I’ve got to help her,” Corec said.

“I’m sure we’ll all help,” Boktar said, “but I don’t know anything about demons. I saw an imp once, but that was a long time ago.”

Bobo said, “There are different types of demons. Imps are the smallest, and not particularly dangerous. After that come the true demons. Most walk on two legs like a person, but otherwise, there’s a wide variety. They can range up to about eight feet tall. And then there are the demon lords, who are…bigger, though most of the old stories about them are from when they take on human form.”

“Or elven,” Ellerie said.

“Or elven,” Bobo agreed. “If there’s a demon lord, I don’t think there’s anything we can do about it. We’d have to hope that Yelena gets here soon, and that she’s as powerful as the people in Tyrsall say she is.”

“I thought you didn’t know anything about her,” Corec said.

“When you decided to meet with her, I asked around. Most people only know her name, but the librarians had some interesting stories. In any case, I doubt it’s a demon lord, but there are so many other types of demons, it’s difficult to say what it might be.”

“How do you fight one?”

“The same way you’d fight anyone else, but be aware that it might be stronger than you’d expect, or faster, or have its own sort of magic.”

Venni returned then, the tall woman joining them at their table. “Two more people were killed last night,” she said. “Including one woman who was dragged from her home. The demons aren’t just sticking to the streets anymore, so I’m going to try to track them down.”

“We’ll help,” Corec said. “Do you have any idea how to find them?”

“The Chief Constable says that patrols have been searching day and night. During the day, they go door to door, checking each building, but so far they haven’t had any luck. It’s a big city. He did say that most of the attacks have been in the old section of town. I wish Sarlo were here, but we’ll have to figure it out on our own. I suppose we could join the patrols for now, but we probably won’t see anything until nightfall.”

#

Hells of my fathers, Razai thought to herself as the group left the common room. Now what am I supposed to do?

She’d woken up at first light and followed the whispers’ directions to find her target, then sat near his friends once they’d started coming down to the common room. Discovering that he knew Yelena had been almost as much of a shock as hearing that he intended to hunt down the demons.

Her father didn’t want the man dead, but Razai had no idea what he did want. Should she try to stop them from finding the demons? How would she manage that? And if she didn’t stop them, how could she make sure he stayed alive?

She considered trying to reach out to Tifwa, but it was unlikely the imp would have the power to return again so soon. And in any case, she was no longer sure she could trust her father. His last words to her the night before had been ominous, as if something was going to happen that he’d been keeping secret from her.