The Truth of Shadows Read online

  Sighing and saying a quick prayer to Amedan, Odrick made his way up the cobbled walk, past the ornate gardens decorating the grounds, gardens similar to those one could find outside almost any nobleman’s home. The rich and powerful liked nature well enough, Odrick figured, just so long as it was tame. Cultivated and manicured and—to his mind at least—fake.

  The door opened an instant after he’d knocked. “Eriondrian, is that you?” A voice asked. Lord Tirinian stood in the doorway, his thinning gray hair out of place and sticking up randomly on his head, his clothes disheveled, his chin and cheeks outlined by a growth of white stubble.

  Odrick swallowed. “Forgive me, Lord Tirinian, but it’s only me again.”

  “Ah,” the man said, nodding and doing his best at a smile that did nothing to hide his own worry or disappointment. “Of course. Odrick, it is good to see you again. Has there been any word?”

  Odrick winced, feeling a rush of guilt. “Sorry, sir, but no. I actually came to see if perhaps you or Lady Tirinian had heard any news.”

  The old man sighed, nodding as he readjusted the spectacles he wore. “I’m sure that he’s okay, Odrick, wherever he is,” he said, but the man’s voice made it obvious that he was trying to reassure himself as much as the blacksmith’s son. “Now, please, tell me, how is your father doing?”

  “He’s good, lord,” Odrick said, bowing his head. “I’ll tell him you asked after him. He’ll be delighted to hear it.” And that, at least, was true, for in his role as the city’s foremost blacksmith, Odrick’s father had been commissioned by nearly all of the nobles and the city’s rich, each of them trying to outmatch the others in what they had crafted, each of them caring nothing for the thing itself—whether it was a sword they’d never use or armor they’d never wear. All, that was, except, according to his father, Lord Tirinian.

  His father had said that out of all the men in the city, Lord Tirinian was the only one that truly appreciated his work for what it was—art. He was the only one that had shown any respect for the beauty of it, all the others too blinded by their own ambitions, by the image they had of themselves and their desire to be seen, to notice. A good man, his father had said, a kind one. And Odrick felt much the same about Rion himself. Sure, he was prickly sometimes, but he was the only one who ever stood up for Odrick when Sevrin offered his japes, the only one who treated him like a person, instead of a pig that had contrived to put on clothes and pretended to be their equal.

  Odrick didn’t have many friends. The poor who he’d grown up with now accused him of thinking he was better than them, while the rich thought he wasn’t good enough. His only friend—his only real one—was Eriondrian.

  “Your father’s a good man,” Lord Tirinian said, pulling Odrick from his thoughts.

  “He would say the same of you, sir.”

  “And on most days, he might even be telling the truth,” the old man answered, giving Odrick a wink and a smile that quickly vanished. “Where are my manners? Please, Odrick, come in.”

  “Forgive me, lord, but I can’t…” He glanced up at the sky where the sun was hanging low, preparing to sink into the horizon. “I have some deliveries I have to make for my father, and I’m supposed to do them before it gets dark. I just wanted to check and see if you’d heard anything, and I apologize for bothering you, but I have to be leaving if I’ve any chance of getting my work done on time.” The truth was he was already long past being able to do that, had made it impossible as soon as he’d decided to visit and check on Eriondrian, but his worries and concerns had grown so that he couldn’t resist the urge to ask after his friend.

  “Ah, very well,” the old man said, nodding. “If you’re sure.”

  “I’m afraid I must be, sir.”

  “Well. You’ll tell your father I said hello?”

  “Of course, lord. I wish you a good day.”

  “And you as well.”

  Odrick turned to go, but stopped as the man spoke his name.

  He looked back, and perhaps it was only the deepening gloom, but the older man looked to have aged ten years in seconds, the lines on his face deep and craggy, and there were large, purple circles under his eyes. “Yes, sir?”

  The nobleman’s mouth worked for several seconds, but finally he spoke. “He’ll come back. Eriondrian is a smart boy, a good boy…he’ll come back. And when he does, I’ll let you know.”

  Odrick gave the man a fragile smile. “Thank you, sir.”

  Lord Tirinian nodded, smiling himself, but the expression dropped as he made to close the door, and Odrick could see worry and fear writ plain on his face an instant before the door shut. “Damnit, Eriondrian,” he muttered, “where are you?”

  Odrick turned and started down the lane, each step feeling heavier than it should, as if the burden of worry he carried had grown considerably during the short conversation with his friend’s father. He made it to the street and paused. He had not been lying to the lord—he had several hours’ worth of work ahead of him and not enough time to do it in. Yet, such mundane concerns seemed small and unimportant next to his missing friend. And for all the fear and worry he felt, it must be much worse for his friend’s mother and father, to know that their only son was missing.

  He turned to gaze back at the house in the deepening gloom, wishing there was something that he could say, something he could tell them to make them feel better. He saw what appeared, in the near-darkness, to be a shadow moving across the roof of the estate. At first, he thought he’d imagined it, that it must surely have been some trick of the failing sun. He had pretty much convinced himself it was nothing more than that when another form glided across the other side of the roof, toward the first.

  Shadows did not move like that, in concert, and he doubted that even if they had, they would have had any particular interest in the chimney. Not shadows at all then, but people. And try as he might, Odrick couldn’t think of anyone who would want to climb on a nobleman’s roof, who would wait for the cover of darkness to do it. No one, at least, save for criminals out to cause trouble.

  “Best you be on your way then, fella.”

  Odrick turned and frowned at a man standing in the street only a few feet away. He was a big man, nearly as big as Odrick himself, and the blacksmith’s son didn’t miss the knife sheathed at the man’s waist. He made no move toward it, and his stance wasn’t particularly threatening, but Odrick found that he was threatened just the same, and it was not a feeling he liked.

  “Are you a guard, then?” Odrick asked. “If so, I have to inform you that you seem to have forgotten your uniform.”

  The man smiled affably. “No guard, just a concerned citizen. You see, you may not be aware of it, but the guards on this street don’t take kindly to people loitering in the darkness.” His smile widened, and he studied Odrick with cold eyes. “If you’re not careful, they’ll mistake you for a man lookin’ for trouble. That happens, there ain’t much chance you don’t end the day hurt. Better if a good lordling like yourself doesn’t take any chances. You understand?”

  “Better that I leave then,” Odrick said. “Less chances of…as you say…getting in trouble.”

  The man nodded his head. “Seems we understand each other.”

  Odrick nodded, walking closer to the man than he strictly had to as he started into the street. “Just the one thing,” he said, pausing beside the man.

  “Oh?” the stranger asked, his smile faltering, and Odrick didn’t miss the way the man’s hand came to his waist, pointedly resting a few inches from the sheathed knife.

  “Yeah,” Odrick said, “I’m no lordling.” He grabbed hold of the man’s tunic with one hand, even as the man made for his knife. He’d only managed to get it halfway out of its sheath when Odrick’s punch connected with his face.

  Odrick was no fighter, and he hadn’t been trained in combat. He knew all the ways to make a sword while knowing absolutely nothing about how to use it. But he was a blacksmith, like his father, and what he did know was tha
t nobody ever got weak from working in a smithy. So when his knuckles—thick and scarred from his work—struck the man’s cheek, the man’s face seemed to mold around them as if it was being reshaped. And the man wasn’t thinking about going for the knife then, wasn’t thinking about running Odrick off, either. In fact, he wasn’t thinking much of anything, judging by the way he fell, sprawling on the cobbles, unconscious.

  Odrick blinked in surprise at his own actions then frantically looked around him in the street, sure that a guard would step out at any moment and decide that he’d attacked an innocent man, then throw him into the dungeons. But there was no guard—strange, that, considering that the street was normally regularly patrolled by them—so Odrick bent and hefted the man over his shoulder. He was a big man and heavy, but Odrick was used to lifting bundles of steel and metal in the forge, and his muscles offered little complaint as he walked the man toward the only place he could think of—Eriondrian’s house.

  Once he was inside the walls on either side of the walk, he dumped the man’s unconscious form into a bush, hoping its leafy blooms would obscure it. Then, frowning when the man didn’t so much as twitch as he hit the ground, Odrick knelt and held his hands in front of the man’s nose. After a moment, he heaved a heavy sigh of relief. Breathing, then, but he didn’t think the man would wake any time soon.

  A thought struck him, and he glanced up to the roof of the house once more, but the shadows that had been there were gone. He scanned the rooftop but did not see them anywhere. Which meant only one thing.

  They’re already in the house.

  Unless, that was, Odrick was imagining it. They’d only been shadows, after all, easy enough to mistake them for something else, something more, in the dark. After all, every child in the world did the same thing. But you’re not a child, are you? Besides, whether or not the shadows had been real, the man in the street most certainly had been, and he had made it obvious enough that he wanted Odrick gone. Why would he want that unless he intended to…well, to do something anyway?

  But what if the man had actually just been a concerned citizen, as he’d said? Well, if that were the case, Odrick would have some explaining to do when the man finally woke up and found a city guard. Odrick was still shocked at how rash he’d been. He was not a man who normally acted impulsively. He liked to take his time, considering a problem from as many angles as he could, for his father had taught him long ago that, more often than not, to act quickly was to act wrongly, and fast work didn’t save time if it had to be redone.

  So what had possessed him, then, to punch the man as he had? It wasn’t as if he’d threatened him—at least, not outright. “No,” he muttered to himself; better not to think of it. He would knock on the door and the lord of the house would answer, wondering why Odrick was coming back after less than five minutes and also wondering, no doubt, why there was an unconscious man stuffed into his rose bush.

  But no one did answer the first knock. Or the second. And by the third, Odrick decided that the shadows hadn’t just been shadows after all, that they were in fact what he’d taken them to be—men. Criminals. And why would the lord or lady not answer the door unless…? Unless they’re in trouble.

  The door was locked, a smart precaution with night coming on, but Odrick was used to working with heavy metal and stone, the highest quality of it, and his thick muscles, like the weapons he and his father made, had been forged in the smithy. The first time his shoulder struck the door it splintered and cracked. The second time it broke through, hanging dangerously on one hinge. “Lord Tirinian?” he asked, and realized at once that he was an idiot. If the lord hadn’t shown up to check on who was battering his door down, then he certainly wouldn’t be drawn out by a whisper, which was about the best he could manage just then.

  A sound came from up the stairs, and Odrick’s skin went cold. No denying what that was, no matter how much he might wish to. It had been muffled, barely audible over the pounding of his own heart, but he knew a scream when he heard one. He started up the stairs, then paused as he realized for the first time that he was planning to take on two criminals without so much as a fishing knife to defend himself. Probably, it was too much to hope that they’d each let him get a punch in before they gutted him with the blades they no doubt carried as the man in the street had.

  He looked around the room, searching for anything that he might use as a weapon, and caught sight of the dining room through a half-open doorway and, within it, an ornate table with four chairs. He rushed inside, then hesitated for a second after he went to grab a chair and saw that it was of the finest make he’d ever seen. Swirling designs had been carved into the chair’s surface, and a cushion was stitched into the seat. It was fine workmanship, and as a blacksmith, Odrick could appreciate the effort the chair’s maker had put into it. The man wasn’t just a woodworker—he was an artist. It would be a shame to—

  Another scream from upstairs, and the sound of something hitting the floor with a loud thump. Odrick snatched up the chair and was surprised by how heavy it was, then he started up the stairs at a run.

  He paused on the landing, listening.

  “Please,” a voice said from somewhere down the hall, “I don’t know wha—” There was the unmistakable sound of someone being struck, and the speaker cried out in pain. Suddenly, Odrick’s fear was gone, and he narrowed his eyes. He knew that voice, for it was the voice of Lord Tirinian, his friend’s father.

  He rushed toward the room from which the sound had come. The door was partway open, and Odrick kicked it in the rest of the way. He charged through the doorway, and had a brief glimpse of two men standing menacingly around the lord and lady of the house. Lady Tirinian was backed against a wall, her long gray hair loose of its bun, wearing bed clothes as if she had already been asleep when the men entered. Lord Tirinian was sprawled on the floor, his back against the bed, a fresh bruise rising on his face, looking bewildered and confused. The sight of the kindly old man hurt, of his wife’s wide, frightened eyes, sent a flash of anger through Odrick, and before he knew it he let out a shout, barreling toward the nearest thug whose back was turned to him.

  The man spun, bringing the knife he held up and in line to halt Odrick’s charge, but he was too late. The thick chair was already whistling through the air. Powered by the blacksmith’s formidable muscles, the chair struck the thug in the shoulder. There was an audible crack that didn’t come from the chair, and the criminal stumbled away with a wail. He was still struggling to right himself when Odrick grabbed the chair from where it had fallen and hit him again. This time, the thick wood struck the thug in the head, and he collapsed soundlessly to the ground, blood leaking down his face.

  A line of white-hot pain cut across Odrick’s side, and he spun to see the other thug behind him, his knife bloody where it had cut him. The two stood watching each other for a moment, Odrick’s chest heaving, his side burning, the other, smaller man studying him warily. Then the man lunged forward, his blade leading. Odrick tried to dodge it, but though hours spent in his father’s shop might have done much for his strength, they had done nothing for his speed, and the blade sliced a shallow cut across his arm before he could get out of the way.

  “Should have minded your own business, you big bastard,” the thug hissed, dancing back and forth on the balls of his feet, a small, confident smile on his face. “Now I’m gonna cut you up.”

  Odrick didn’t bother answering. His side hurt, his arm hurt, and as far as he could tell, the man was right. He’d been in his share of fights—growing up in the poor quarter of the city, a man couldn’t avoid them, particularly when his size seemed to make everybody want to challenge him. Still, this man made a living out of it, and he was fast. Much faster than Odrick.

  So, Odrick took his moment, as was his way, thinking it over as he held the chair in front of him, a barrier between him and the bloody knife the man wielded. Then, an idea came to him, and he let out a grunt as he hurled the heavy chair at the thug. He saw the man’s
eyes go wide with surprise a moment before the chair struck him, and he cried out, stumbling back against the wall.

  Odrick followed as fast as he could, and the man was still trying to get his balance when he came upon him. A punch to the man’s midsection, and the air left him in a gasping whoosh, as he doubled over from the blow. Odrick struck him again, aiming for his face, but the man stumbled away at the last moment, and his fist only partially connected. Still, it was enough to send the man reeling, where he tripped over the sprawled leg of his companion and fell to the ground.

  The blacksmith started toward him, turning to the two nobles. “Lord Tirinian,” he said, nodding. “Lady Tirinian. Are you both okay?”

  “W-we’re fine, Odrick,” the old man answered, blinking owlishly, his hands searching on the ground for his glasses that had apparently been knocked free during the scuffle.

  Odrick saw them a short distance away and shot another glance at the second thug to see that he didn’t look like he’d be getting up anytime soon. Then, he bent down, wincing at the fresh pain in his side, and picked the spectacles up before offering them to the old man. “There you are, sir.”

  “Ah, thank you, lad,” the old man said, taking them and putting them on. Then his eyes widened. “Odrick, behi—”

  The blacksmith was spinning before the man finished, but he never got to hear the rest of the nobleman’s words, as something struck him in the back of the head, hard, and darkness rushed into his vision. Three, he thought drunkenly, there were three… He was aware of his legs giving way beneath him, then the floor rushed up to meet him, and then he was aware of nothing at all.

  ***

  Elver stared at the unconscious giant at his feet to make sure he was well and truly out, rubbing a hand along his gray stubble. Gettin’ too old to be doing this sort of business, he thought.