Night of Long Shadows

CHAPTER 2

The first night of Long Shadows

Zor, the 26th day of Vult, 998

Cutter stood in the recessed doorway of a tenement building. He breathed through his mouth, trying not to inhale the stale, acidic stench of old vomit. When he first stepped into the shadowed entrance he’d stood on something soft and brittle that crunched and squished beneath his feet. He didn’t check to see what it was.

He leaned against the wall and watched the Starfire Dragon across the street. It was the only place he could think of nearby that would still be open at that time of night. It wasn’t a theatre, so it didn’t close after the last show. It was more of a supper venue with good food and terrible entertainment. But most importantly, the Middle Menthis residents that frequented it were wealthy enough that they would call a skycoach to take them home. All he had to do was wait.

Cutter’s patience was soon rewarded. He saw the underside light first, a tiny everbright globe that appeared through the rain as a skycoach slowly descended. The bad weather caused the driver to overshoot his mark, so he turned the coach gracefully, coming to a landing outside the doors to the club. Dim blue lighting from inside the boat-shaped vessel lit the underside of the driver’s face.

Cutter darted into the rain. He didn’t give the man a chance to see him. He took his cudgel from his belt and slammed it into the back of the driver’s neck. The man dropped, smacking his head on the seat as he went. Blood flowed from the wound. Cutter grabbed him under the arms and dragged him from the coach. He propped him against the wall of the Starfire and climbed inside the skycoach. As soon as he did so, the rain stopped falling. He looked up, but the downpour had not slowed. The coach no doubt carried a charm to keep the occupants dry.

He shook the water from his face and took hold of the controls. He closed his eyes and focused his mind, bonding with the elemental that powered the coach. It sensed someone familiar with the craft, and acquiesced to his presence. He hadn’t anticipated a problem. There were so many drivers for these skycoaches that they couldn’t be bound to any one driver.

Cutter opened his eyes and pulled back on the controls. Just as he was rising into the air, a man and a woman stepped outside, gesturing frantically for him to come back. Cutter ignored them and kept going.

Driving a skycoach wasn’t just a matter of up, down, and forward. Some time ago, Cutter had worked as a coach driver, and it had taken him a month to get the hang of it. It was almost an art to keep the coach from slamming into the undersides of bridges, clipping the jutting cornices and turrets of strangely shaped buildings, and to avoid the unpredictable maneuverings of other skycoaches. Higher up in the skies, drivers had to contend with the Lyrandar airships. They were the worst. They thought they owned the skies, and they were furious that the Sharn council had given contracts for skycoaches to non-Lyrandar companies. If a skycoach got in their way, they’d simply ram it out of the sky.

Cutter took the coach straight up until the curve of a massive tower appeared out of the rain above him. He slowed his ascent and carefully followed the curve as it flared outward and upward. A long strip of glowing white appeared above him. The curve he was following fed into a bridge that connected the tower to another. The white glow came from the underside of the bridge, a safety feature instigated recently by some of the artificers on the council. Cutter wished they’d done it when he was a driver. It certainly made things a lot easier.

He guided the vessel beneath the bridge, then headed forward again. The multicolored lights of other skycoaches materialized out of the night, their illumination haloed and muted by the rain. Everyone was keeping it careful. Too easy for accidents to happen.

He arrived at Dalannan Tower, home of Morgrave University, and drifted upward, the surrounding towers falling gradually away the higher he went, their lights little more than faint twinklings that faded away below him. The air changed. It was still warm, but it was fresher, less oppressive. He lifted his face and took a deep breath, cleansing his mind for what lay ahead.

The coach soared over the top of the tower. He could see a patch of grass below him, and small clumps of trees. He was disoriented for a second, but then realized that it wasn’t Dalannan Tower. He must have drifted off course as he rose upward. This was Breland Spire. The parklike area would be the Commons. He’d heard about it before. Sort of a gathering place for students. He leaned over and peered into the rain, searching for a bridge that connected Breland Spire to Dalannan Tower. Once there, he could find a way in.

He landed the skycoach beneath the trees and disconnected the glyph stone that powered it. The blue lights died and the rain trickled through the branches into the coach. He jumped onto the grass and set off across the Commons. He found the bridge and paused beneath the cover of the peaked roof. He shook the water from his clothes and looked around. Shops and stalls, locked up for the night, lined one side of the wide walkway. The other side was a wall that was entirely covered in paper-notices of upcoming events, advertisements, pages of interest from the Breland Ledger.

Cutter hurried along, his heavy boots clumping loudly on the wooden flooring. The bridge opened onto a flagstone pathway lined with delicately pruned bushes. This in turn led up a flight of marble stairs that stopped before a set of vast double doors. The doors let into Lareth Hall, the huge dome that capped Dalannan Tower and Morgrave University.

Cutter tried the handles, but the doors were locked. He stepped back and sized up the strength of the wood. No. There was no way he was breaking these doors down. He slipped behind the jasmine bushes at the side of the entrance and followed the curve of the dome until he reached a set of tall windows. They were made of stained glass, their pictures depicting various scenes from history. Cutter stood beneath a scene showing the three dragons-Syberis, Eberron, and Khyber. The window was divided into sections, each lined with lead framing. At least the whole window wouldn’t come down on him.

Cutter slipped on a pair of gloves and lightly tapped the window. The glass was thick. He pulled out his knife and smacked the window with the pommel. Nothing. He hit it again, and this time a crack appeared in the glass. He tapped it a few more times, not hard enough to send the glass falling away on the other side, but enough to extend the cracks, separating the glass into fragments. He hit one piece hard. It smashed, the shards falling down the other side. He waited, breath held, but could hear no sounds of alarm. Then he pulled the broken splinters out of the frame.

It took a while, but when he finished, the hole in the window was big enough to squeeze through. He poked his head in first. The interior was dim, lit by shuttered, yellow everbright lanterns. No one was about.

Cutter pulled himself up onto the ledge and slid through the gap. His feet touched down on soft carpet. He moved against the wall and looked around.

He stood in an atrium that fed into a wide corridor. Paneled doors opened off both sides of the corridor. Sofas and bookshelves furnished the room. Cutter got the impression it was some sort of gathering area for the university staff.

Against one wall was an old diagram of the college, illustrating the different levels. Cutter stood on the floor that held the administrative and faculty offices. The level below held the vast library. And beneath that were rooms belonging to the staff who lived on the premises. That was where he needed to go.

Cutter headed down the corridor and found the stairs. He peered over the banister to make sure no one was in sight, then padded down to the next level. Light streamed from the library. He paused one turn above and listened. He heard noises below. The soft sigh of pages being turned and the scratching sound of quill on paper. Someone was doing research.

He crouched down, but he could see only the main library desk. Empty. He crept down the stairs, keeping the banister to his back. As he moved lower, he could see a study desk to the right. Someone was there-a dwarf. And he didn’t look too happy. He slammed a book shut. Cutter froze while the dwarf dumped the book onto a pile at his feet and pulled another vast tome from the pile on the desk. He opened it, muttering obscenities about someone who was making him work.

Cutter got moving. He slid around the turn and headed down to the next level. No one challenged him, which was a relief. Now all he had to do was find Rowen’s professor. How was he going to do that?

He thought back to everything Rowen had said about her visits to the Professor. Hadn’t she said once that she looked out of his windows and saw that some students had defaced the flag on Karrnath Spire?

He walked to the end of the hallway and looked out the window. He stared for a while but it was no use. He couldn’t see far enough through the rain. He carefully tried the handle of the door to his left. Locked. So was the one on his right. He made his way slowly up the corridor, checking each door for any clues.

About halfway down the hall, he found a dark stain on the wooden floorboards. He knelt down and touched it. His fingers came away sticky. Blood.

He straightened and tried the door. It was unlocked. Cutter paused, listening for sounds of movement. Nothing. Light spilled through the crack. It was bright, not the kind of light that might be left on while someone slept. He gently pushed the door and peered inside. A neat sitting room lay beyond, lit by delicate lamps. Low couches formed a circle around a sunken fireplace. Rugs were strewn around the floor, so people could sit and soak up the warmth. Cutter looked around the doorframe. A red carpet covered the floor beyond the couches. And doors opened into other parts of the residence.

Cutter slipped inside and closed the door. His eyes searched the area for signs of Rowen, but nothing betrayed her presence. Then again, he wasn’t sure these were the right rooms. He swallowed, feeling his stomach tense up. If he wanted to find out if this was the right place, he was looking in the wrong room.

He rested his head briefly against the door and closed his eyes.

Come on, he told himself. You knew the deal going into this relationship. He smiled grimly. Yeah, but he had been arrogant enough to think that he could change her, that she wouldn’t want to sleep with other men after she’d been with him. He opened his eyes. How many men had made that mistake?

He headed around a couch, aiming for the rooms that opened off the lounge.

And that was when he found the professor. Or what was left of him. He had been ripped apart. Literally. One arm lay half-concealed beneath the couch, the fingers splayed. They had been broken, probably before the arm was ripped off. His stomach was a gaping hole, crimson and purple with exposed organs, the blood congealing into viscous pools. His intestines had been pulled out. His other hand was holding them as if he had fought to keep them inside.

His lower jaw had been torn from his face. It lay next to his right ear, the teeth starkly white against the blood. His tongue hung from the gaping mess that was the lower part of his head. It dangled, swollen and blue.

Rowen. Cutter pushed himself to his feet and threw the first door open. It was a bathroom. Empty. He turned quickly, almost slipping in the blood. He grabbed hold of the doorframe to balance himself and lunged into the next room. This one was the bedroom. He frantically searched the floor, but there was no sign of her body anywhere. He paused and inhaled deeply, relief flooding through his body. He had to think about this. He walked over to the bed. The sheets were a jumbled mess and he could smell Rowen’s perfume on the pillows. She’d definitely been here.

So the question was-what happened, and where was she now?

He turned, planning a more detailed search of the room. But instead, he froze. Something wasn’t right. He wasn’t sure what it was, but he suddenly felt he wasn’t alone.

And then the shadows came alive and lunged at him. Something rock hard smacked him in the chest, lifting him into the air and sending him flying backward over the bed. He landed on the edge of the mattress and tumbled to the floor, his chest and ribs flaring with pain. He rolled to his feet, eyes frantically searching for his assailant, but he could see nothing in the dimly lit room. He backed against the wall and pulled out his Khutai knives, holding them in the ready position along his forearms.

He slid along the wall, creeping toward the doorway. Still no sign of his attacker. Cutter glanced to his left, checking the door.

When he turned back, he found himself staring into a pair of glowing white eyes. A black metal face hovered only inches from his own. It tilted to the side, birdlike, studying him for an instant. Then it jerked forward, head-butting him.

Cutter staggered backward into the wall, blood spraying from his nose. He slashed out with the knives, hearing the scrape of metal on metal. He ducked low, barely avoiding a fist that smashed into the wall where his face had been. Plaster showered his head. He stabbed upward with the Khutai, but the blade was turned aside by armor plating. He pushed himself forward, diving headlong across the floor. He scrambled to his feet and pulled the shutter off the everbright lantern near the bed. Yellow light flooded the room.

And Cutter could see what he was facing.

A warforged, but unlike any he had ever seen before. The figure was completely black. Light bounced away from its carapace. Shadows wrapped themselves around its form, almost as if it gathered the darkness as a cloak.

If it had been a human, Cutter would have described it as lithe and sinewy. Its movements were precise, not a motion wasted. He couldn’t quite place what it reminded him of.

But when the warforged stepped away from the wall, he realized what it was.

It reminded him of a hunter stalking its prey. This warforged was more animal than anything else.

It loped toward him, and Cutter saw that the face wasn’t crafted to look like the usual Cannith-issue faceplate. It was thin, like a fox, sharp and pointed, the mouth pulled into a permanent snarl.

“Where is she?” The voice was quiet, unrushed. It sounded male. “Where is she?”

“Where is who?” asked Cutter. He feinted to the side, but the warforged darted forward and grabbed hold of his neck. It lifted Cutter from the floor and pulled him close. The head tilted again and it sniffed, moving over Cutter’s face and neck.

“The girl,” it said. “You have her stench all over you. Where is she?”

Rowen. The ‘forged was talking about Rowen. Cutter struggled in its grasp. “Why?” he gasped. “What do you want with her?”

“That,” said the warforged, “is none of your business.”

It stepped forward and rammed Cutter into the wall. His body smashed through the plaster, his head hitting the wooden wall framing.

“I ask again,” said the warforged. “Where is she?”

The warforged stepped to the side and jerked Cutter away from the wall. He hit the floor, landing awkwardly on his arm. Groaning, he pushed himself to his feet. He’d managed to hold onto his knives, but they seemed useless against the warforged’s plating.

He looked around. The warforged had vanished again.

Cutter realized that the warforged was toying with him, like a predator with harmless prey. Anger coursed through his body and he straightened up. This time he saw the attack coming. He leaned away from the sound of movement and swung his arm in an overhand thrust. He felt the blade connect and sink in, heard a hiss of pain.

Cutter yanked the blade out again.

So the warforged wasn’t invincible. It was just a matter of finding the vulnerable parts.

Cutter dropped into a crouch and swung both knives. They connected but didn’t penetrate. Sparks flew, then something smashed into Cutter’s face. Pain exploded in his cheek. Light flashed before his eyes like lightning strikes stabbing into his head. He was pulled off his feet. He fought, disoriented, but all he could do was scrabble feebly at the metal armor. The warforged pulled him close, then thrust him away again in one smooth, fluid movement. The room flew by, then he was in the light again as he sailed into the lounge.

He landed on his back, his breath exploding from his lungs. He heard a horrible cracking beneath him, then wetness spread along his back. Cutter tried to push himself up but kept slipping every time he did so. What was going on?

Then he realized. He had landed on top of the professor. He felt the bile rise in his throat. He rolled over, momentarily face to face with the shattered visage, then kicked away. He pushed himself to his knees, wincing at the pain shooting through his body. The professor’s blood covered him.

The warforged strode out of the bedroom. Cutter shuffled sideways into the sitting area, putting the couch between himself and his assailant. The warforged didn’t pause. It walked straight over the professor’s body, leaned down and grabbed hold of a couch, and straightened again, sending the heavy piece of furniture crashing into the wall.

Cutter fell back a step. He remembered the sunken fire pit behind him and stepped around it. All he could think about was getting out of this alive. Rowen was in trouble somewhere and he had to find her. He glanced over his shoulder. The door was only a few feet away. If only-

He turned back and shouted in surprise. The warforged was in midair, sailing toward him like a spider gliding along webs.

Cutter dove forward, the warforged passing above him. He tucked his shoulder and rolled straight to his feet, whirling around with his blades held ready.

The construct stood directly in front of him. It grabbed Cutter’s neck, lifting him from the floor. Cutter stabbed beneath its arms, but this time there was no give.

“I will ask one last time,” it said. “Tell me where she is.”

The warforged squeezed. Cutter felt his throat constrict, pushing all the air from his lungs.

“I … I don’t … know.”

“A pity.”

The fingers tightened even more. Cutter dropped his knives and desperately tried to loosen the grip, but it was impossible. The warforged was too strong. Blackness appeared at the edge of his vision. He squeezed his eyes shut, not wanting his last sight to be that of his murderer. He thought of Rowen, and he prayed that she was somewhere safe, that she hadn’t gotten involved in anything stupid. His lungs screamed for air. He felt a lump in his chest, slowly rising, cutting off all feeling as it went. It hit his throat, demanding air, but there was none. It rose higher, into his head, and he felt himself drifting, falling …

Cutter hit the floor. A moment later he realized that the fingers were gone from his throat. He opened his mouth and pulled in a screaming gasp, air burning, coursing into his body, driving the blackness away. He rolled onto his back, sucking in great mouthfuls of air, as much as he could get. Cutter opened his eyes and rolled over, wondering what was happening, waiting for the killing blow to fall. He tried to get to his feet but his hand slipped and he collapsed, catching the metallic butcher smell of blood in his nostrils. Cutter stared blearily at the red pool beneath him. He had rolled into the professor’s blood again.

Cutter finally pushed himself up. He looked around and saw his Khutai blades lying nearby. He stretched out and grabbed hold of the pommels, dragging them toward him.

He winced and climbed to his feet, looking about the room. There was no sign of the warforged. It had just disappeared. But why?

He heard a gasp of surprise. He turned, still foggy, and saw a dwarf-the dwarf from the library-standing in the doorway, staring at Cutter.

Cutter looked down at his blood-covered body crouched over the corpse of the professor, bloodied knives in his hands.

He looked up at the dwarf. He was reaching into his jerkin for something. Cutter shook his head, knowing there was no point in proclaiming his innocence here. It looked too incriminating.

He staggered toward the door. Whatever the dwarf was trying to reach was caught inside his clothes. Cutter swung his fist, hitting him in the side of the head. The dwarf fell against the door frame, then collapsed to his knees.

Cutter swept past him and sprinted up the stairs to the rooftop, his breath burning in his lungs and his heart beating erratically in his chest. He crawled back through the window and ran across the bridge.

Only when he was gliding through the air, safe in the sky-coach, did he allow himself a sigh of relief.