The ragged man

PROLOGUE – PART 3

Doranei watched as shadows stole through the streets below, slipping through the alleys and coalescing into darkness. He blinked, and the curved avenues of Byora faded from his perception as the stepped city was swallowed by the dark.

Been taught my whole life to look for shadows, he thought. Now they're all I see. 'I saw another prophet today,' he said aloud, the sound feeling out of place in the high, silent room.

'I'm sorry? You saw what?' Zhia Vukotic came closer, her sapphire eyes shining in the light of a single candle.

'A prophet, didn't you hear?'

She ignored the edge in his voice. These past two weeks there had been an ever-present air of anger and antagonism about the Narkang man, even in bed. The scent of violence would have frightened any normal woman, but Zhia feared only for him. She tried to remember how long it had been since grief had consumed her every thought.

'I was watching your face,' the vampire admitted; 'I wasn't paying attention to the words. Tell me about the prophet.'

Doranei remained silent for a time, his face twitching slightly, as though words were fighting to get out but couldn't quite force their way through. Tsatach's eye had only just sunk behind Blackfang and the striated clouds over the mountain were tinged a startling burnished orange. It was a beautiful sight but Zhia realised he saw nothing, barely noticing even the bulky silhouette of a dragon, rising to circle on the high thermals like a hunting hawk.

There was a black need for destruction fizzing through Doranei's blood, not unlike that in the maddened beast Kastan Styrax had awakened and left to devastate the Circle City. Zhia and her brother, Koezh, had caused its slumber; the spell they used had corroded what had already been an unknowable, unpredictable intellect. Now hatred filled its mind, arbitrary and unquenchable.

'A man this time. It struck him in the middle of the street,' Doranei said abruptly, no louder than a whisper. 'No warning. I thought he was drunk when he staggered into a wall.' Unconsciously he raised his goblet and drank. She saw his lips twitch just before the rim touched, a name spoken silently.

They stood alone in the high room on the topmost level of a whorehouse known as the Velvet Cup. Doranei had pulled open the shutters on one side of the room to watch the sun set – at least, that was what he would claim. Zhia knew it was the sight of the Ruby Tower wreathed in shadow that obsessed him; that and watching the junction where his friend Sebe had died. The choice of vantage point had been pure chance, as was the direction Ilumene and Aracnan had taken as they went to lead Byora's soldiers against the Farlan. When you were angry at chance, and Fate had been murdered mere miles away, who could you take it out on?

'That's something I have never witnessed, not in all my years,' Zhia said, 'but I do not envy you it.'

'He didn't hurt anyone,' Doranei continued, more to himself than in response. 'There was a detachment of Ruby Tower Guards at the crossroads; one of them laid him out as he made for a beggar. They manacled him to a pillar while they sent for orders, he stood there for an hour snarling like a rabid dog before they worked out what to do with him.'

'Did he say anything?'

Doranei turned to face his vampire lover. Zhia frowned under his scrutiny as Doranei appeared to search for something in her face. Her black hair was tied up in a way he'd not seen before, braids woven together and bound by a thin copper band on the top of her head. It wasn't quite the style many mercenaries used, but it was similar.

'It was fast, too fast to follow properly. I only heard one scrap.' He gestured at the Ruby Tower, now just an outline in the evening gloom. 'What your friend will have to say about it I don't know.'

Zhia didn't rise to the bait, knowing he was looking for an excuse to rage, to vent the grief he felt over Sebe's death. He didn't want to hurt her, she knew that, and anyway, any confrontation between them would leave Doranei injured, not her, but she suspected he'd prefer a beating to the pain of grief.

'Ruhen is not my friend; you know that's not the reason I cannot join your assault.'

Lord Isak's death had resonated throughout the Land with enough force to turn a dozen men and women in Byora alone into prophets, but it was a death less than an hour before Isak's that had cast this veil of anguish over the King's Man. Zhia had seen the destruction of the junction of roads not long after; she could easily picture the wild storm of magic unleashed there by a maddened Demi-God. Buildings had shattered at Aracnan's touch; the cobbles were torn up as though fifty-foot claws had ripped through the street.

Sebe's body was buried in the devastation, and the wrecked houses were still burning fiercely when she returned to the city and found Doranei, filthy and soot-stained, tearing his hands on the rubble, alongside dozens of others. Only fifty bodies were recovered in the end; hundreds more, Sebe amongst them, had been lost to the ferocity of the flames.

Zhia had dragged Doranei to safety, all but imprisoning him in the tavern's cellar to keep him off the streets, but he had barely slept since. He would lie in the bed they shared, his eyes wide; staring at nothing, while she lay powerless to help. At times he looked almost frantic, bewildered, as the tears refused to come, undone by a lifetime of stoicism and detachment.

From his own position three streets away Doranei had heard Aracnan's crashing response to Sebe's poisoned arrow, increasing in violence as the seadiamond venom burned ever hotter in the Demi-God's veins. It was a weak poison compared to most, but Aracnan had made the mistake they had been counting on. When he'd been struck in the shoulder he'd realised the bolt might be poisoned, and had used magic to counter the effects – but this particular venom was magnified by the presence of magic.

Witnesses had reported the stones cracking under Aracnan's feet as he screamed in agony – the flesh of the nearest bystanders had blackened and burned even before he started lashing out with arcs of fire. The house where Sebe was positioned, most likely levelling a second crossbow at Ilumene, had exploded under the magical assault. Only Aracnan's collapse into unconsciousness from the mounting pain had saved the district.

Zhia's voice forced its way into his thoughts. 'Doranei, what did the prophet say?'

The King's Man looked down, knuckles white as his hand tightened on the window sill. 'A great lord falls, a new God rises.'