Dark the Night Descending (The Paderborn Chronicles Book 1) Read online

  “And I thought it was the boredom that would kill me,” he tried to joke, but the nervous edge to his voice made him cringe. It didn’t matter how brave he pretended to be. Nothing about it was funny.

  Soon there was full dark and utter silence. Clouds crept into the sky as the hours dragged on, obscuring the sliver of moon. The breeze started to strengthen as the weather moved in, and some loose piece of gutter from across the road was creaking in the wind. No one was sleeping. Hardly anyone was breathing. It was perfectly still until the screaming began.

  Arran couldn’t see anything. His suddenly racing heart had pumped thick green blotches in front of his eyes, but the false light illuminated nothing. There were sounds – there were certainly sounds, and most of them were unpleasant as the terrified men sobbed and prayed and scrambled for safety where there was none to be found.

  A piercing shriek, like an angry eagle crossed with the ragged despair of a mourning mother, doubled their panic. Even the brawny dockhands were scared, shoving their fellows away from them while cursing volubly, trying to offer them up instead of themselves as another horrifying screech made their ears tremble.

  Arran simply didn’t move. He crouched in a corner like a frog, ready to run at the first brush of invisible fingers against his skin, but perfectly still. He didn’t know if it was going to help. They could smell warm blood, he had been told. They could smell a heartbeat, and taste the copper tang of fear.

  He couldn’t do anything about his heart, nor about its rapid pulse that made his tightening calves tremble under his weight, but he could try to be sure that they were attracted to the movement of the others first, sating themselves before they bothered to turn their attention to him. He had done the same thing before, but the red iron in his pendant had cloaked him then, and he couldn’t be sure that the stillness had anything to do with his survival.

  “What are you doing?” he hissed at Faidal when he heard the man move. “Stay here.”

  Faidal ignored him. He couldn’t see – he couldn’t see a goddamn thing, he thought angrily as he tried to figure out what was happening. Where did Faidal think he was going? There was no help for the poor souls who fell victim to the devils, and he was more than a little annoyed that Faidal seemed to be trying to aid them. If the stupid stranger died, he took with him Arran’s only glimmer of hope. It was selfish, really. The fear must have turned his head.

  But Faidal wasn’t trying to help anyone. Rather, he seemed only to be trying to help himself. Or was he? He was pounding on the door, nearly a foot of black oak secured by massive hinges and an equally daunting lock on the other side. Arran could not for the life of him figure out what Faidal was trying to accomplish – until he heard a sickeningly familiar sound.

  The wood was cracking. It was slowly splintering, just like the hull of his ship had done, under the force of Faidal’s inhuman strength. Arran’s throat tightened as he realized what that must mean. He didn’t look anything like one – he looked perfectly normal. In the poor light, at least. But still.

  “Get out,” Faidal yelled when he had created a hole large enough for a man to wriggle through. There was lamplight beyond the confines of the cell, and a curious constable who had come to see what the problem was. He was soon overwhelmed by the struggling, stampeding prisoners, and when he saw the reason for their flight, he dropped the plate of food he had been carrying and joined them as they sped up the guardhouse’s stairs.

  “Don’t go,” Faidal told Arran, grabbing his arm as he was about to take his turn. “Wait.”

  Faidal pushed him flat against the wall, and Arran stayed there as the last of the prisoners fled. The Siheldi screamed in anger that its banquet was escaping, and even though Arran’s eyes were useless, he could feel the rush of the spirit as it left a prone body on the prison floor and shot through the opening to follow the mass of the living. A warning bell sounded in the guard’s quarters nearby. There was shouting and the pounding of feet as the constables chased the escaping inmates scattering through the city’s streets.

  In five minutes, all was silence. Arran had been holding his breath the entire time, and finally exhaled when Faidal dropped his arm and whistled through his teeth in relief.

  “That wasn’t so bad, was it?” Faidal said, peering through the hole, but not making any move to walk through it.

  “Why did you do that?” Arran said.

  “Someone had to do something,” Faidal said, rubbing the knuckles of his punching hand.

  “You’re a neneckt.”

  “Is that a problem?”

  “You tell me.”

  “I just saved your life.”

  “If you say so. Why aren’t we leaving?” Arran asked.

  “Because I don’t fancy my pretty face being tacked on a reward poster tomorrow. I’ll leave here a free man in the morning, just as planned. And you’re more likely to do the same now that you didn’t try to run.”

  Arran didn’t reply, but walked towards the body lying on the floor, kneeled down, and turned it over. It was Sid. His eyes were open as wide as they could go, his face frozen in a grimace of absolute terror, his skin as pale as candle wax and his muscles hard as granite, leaving his limbs mangled as he tried to defend himself against the unseen.

  “Poor fellow,” Faidal said, looking over his shoulder.

  Arran reached over and drew his eyelids closed. “I hope he finds his peace. God knows there was none for him at his end.”

  “You handled yourself well,” said Faidal, sitting down next to him when Arran returned to his corner, feeling a strong desire for solid stone at his back. “I’m impressed.”

  “Don’t patronize me.”

  “I’m not. You saw what they all did. You didn’t move an inch. That takes courage.”

  Arran didn’t reply. Doing nothing wasn’t courageous. It was just…nothing.

  They sat in silence with the dead man’s tortured form until the welcome light of fire streaming through the broken door threw the corpse into stark relief. It was Godefroy.

  “How many dead?” the sergeant asked, looking surprised to see the pair of them there, making no effort to escape.

  “Only one,” Arran told him.

  “Not old Sid,” Godefroy lamented when he saw the dead man’s face, shaking his head for a moment before signaling to a few of his men to take the body away. “Did you do this?” he asked Faidal, gesturing to the gaping hole.

  “Yes, sir. Sorry, sir. I couldn’t just leave them to it.”

  “I see. Well, it’ll make for some interesting paperwork, but I can’t say I’m sorry for it. None of them were smart enough to get very far, anyway. We’ll have to keep them at the Old Gaol for now.”

  “I really do apologize, sir. There was no time to just work on the hinges.”

  Godefroy sighed. “You two better come along as well. I can’t leave you here.”

  “Sir, perhaps I could have your ear for just a moment,” Faidal said, winking at Arran as he put his arm around the sergeant’s shoulder and led him out into the vestibule.

  Arran could hear the neneckt speaking quietly for some time, with Godefroy adding a few muffled words here and there. He wasn’t really trying to eavesdrop, exactly, but it was frustrating that he couldn’t even catch the gist of the conversation from where he stood.

  “I suppose you’re free to go,” Godefroy told him when they came back into the room.

  “I’m sorry, sir?”

  “Go on. Better you than me.”

  “I’m afraid I don’t –”

  “Let’s be on our way, then,” Faidal said, steering Arran out of the room. “Just shut up and walk.”

  Arran closed his mouth and didn’t open it again until they had left the guardhouse grounds. It was sometime between midnight and dawn, and the clouded air was cold and damp with mist off the sea.

  “Are you going to tell me what just happened?” he asked when Faidal joined him, rubbing his hands together to keep them warm.

  Faidal’s
answer was to hand him a piece of card from the pocket of his breeches. There was print on one side, and Arran walked over to a street lamp to read what it said.

  “Guild of Miners? Inspector? What does that mean?”

  “What does it sound like?”

  “Something bad for me.”

  “I help them figure out what’s real and what’s false,” Faidal said. “We can smell it, you know.”

  “I know.”

  “You and Godefroy both stink of cheap browning. It’s a dye they use to make the iron look red. I told him I wanted you for questioning, and he’s smart enough not to interfere in the Guild’s affairs.”

  “So what are you going to do now? Give me to the Guild so they can torture me? I can tell you right now I have no idea where the cargo came from.”

  “No, there’s no need for any of that. I told you that I need your ship. Wouldn’t help me much if your legs are broken.”

  “Neneckt don’t need ships. They just sink them.”

  “That’s not fair,” Faidal said. “We’re not all rotten, you know.”

  “Whatever you say.”

  “Do you have somewhere to stay?” the neneckt said.

  “Are you asking or offering?”

  Faidal laughed. “Hoping I could have a bit of floor, actually. The Guild House is locked up tight this time of night.”

  “So is the shipyard. I was going to go to my mother’s house, but…”

  “What?”

  “She isn’t all that fond of your kind. I don’t think you’d be welcome.”

  “That’s all right. I’ll figure something.”

  “You can come by in the morning and we can talk about what you need,” Arran said, feeling like he had been rude, even though it was the truth. “We’re on Archer Lane. The brown house – the old boarding lodge.”

  “I will. Thank you.”

  “In fact – no. Come with me now,” he suddenly decided instead as Faidal started to leave. “You did me a good turn. She’ll have to understand that.”

  “I appreciate it. Really. But I don’t want to cause you trouble.”

  “Let’s go,” Arran said, taking his bearings and starting off in the right direction. “No one should be out in this weather. It’ll turn foul by morning, mark my words.”

  CHAPTER FIVE

  It was raining hard when Megrithe left the Guild House, and she had to run with her cloak over her head to avoid as much of the wet as possible, hopping up into the carriage while clutching her skirts to keep the hem out of the worst of the puddles.

  “Let’s go, please,” she called to the driver as she closed the door, wiping rain from her face and trying to squeeze out the ends of her hair without completely ruining her curls. The carriage lurched into life, and she shivered a little as goosebumps formed on her drying skin, not for the first time that day. The previous night had been a bad one. The gathering clouds and cool air were perfect conditions for the Siheldi to come out, and she had heard someone say that there were at least ten people dead in the Aldergate quarter.

  That was where she was going, though. Godefroy had sent her a message about a large shipment of counterfeit confiscated from a smuggler’s ship, and it was her duty to catalogue it, find the source of the supply, and take the criminal captain’s name for the Guild’s registry – or take the captain himself for some intensive questioning if he proved uncooperative.

  She had received the message yesterday, and had contemplated stopping by to see Godefroy that evening. She was glad she hadn’t. She hated being anywhere but the immensely secure Guild House at sunset, and times like last night proved the validity of her fears.

  “That’s very impressive, actually,” Megrithe said as she stared at the wreckage of the door to the cells, her curiosity overcoming her distaste as Godefroy told her of the attack. “They must have been absolutely terrified.”

  “Yes. Only one victim, though. It could have been worse.”

  “That is indeed a mercy. Would you mind showing me the iron?”

  “Right this way, Miss Prinsthorpe.”

  “Thank you.”

  “I’m surprised your colleague didn’t claim it already,” Godefroy said conversationally as they walked down the hallway to the evidence room, where Megrithe picked up a piece of the metal out of a long, shallow crate. “But I suppose he wasn’t expecting to leave last night.”

  “My colleague?” she asked, distracted as she examined it closely. It was a good replica. Very good, despite the fact that it used one of the cheaper types of dyes. Even the Guild’s stamp had been accurately recreated, probably from a legitimate punch that had been stolen from a workshop. The finish on the metal was just slightly too smooth, though, and if she scratched the piece with the edge of another, she could easily see that the ruddy coloring didn’t go any deeper than the surface.

  “Yes, miss. The one who took the captain,” Godefroy was saying. “What was his name again…Fardal? Or Faizal? Something like that.”

  “I’m not sure I know who you mean, sir.”

  “The neneckt. Bit of a smarmy fellow. Always smiling. But he seemed keen enough. Had his Guild cards and everything.”

  Megrithe stopped what she was doing. “A neneckt with Guild cards?” she asked sharply. “Do you have one of them?”

  “I think so. I can check in my desk if you’d like.”

  “Yes, please,” she replied, feeling the goosebumps rising again. There were no neneckt with Guild cards. The cards were reserved for inspectors, and the inspectors were always human.

  There were, however, neneckt employed in other roles in Paderborn’s Guild house, and neneckt with thieving tendencies, and a stack of cards that had been missing from Megrithe’s office since last week, which she hadn’t told anyone about for fear of losing her job.

  “Here it is,” Godefroy said after digging around in a drawers. “It didn’t look suspicious to me.”

  “That’s because it isn’t,” Megrithe said, her stomach sinking as she recognized the typeset she had specifically chosen for herself. “It’s mine.”

  “Oh.”

  “Will you describe the neneckt to me, sir?” Megrithe asked, crumpling the card in her fist as she tried to maintain her pleasant smile.

  “Average height, with light hair,” Godefroy said, trying to hide his face, which had gone bright red as he realized his mistake. “Good eyes for a sea devil. You could hardly tell. He had a mark on his arm. A flower of some sort, I think.”

  “And the smuggler he took with him?”

  “That is a little easier. His name is Arran Swinn. I know his ship, and it ain’t going anywhere.”

  Megrithe nodded. “Very well. I will let my men take the contraband to the Guild House. In the meantime, perhaps we ought to take a trip to the harbor to take a look at this ship of yours – if you haven’t managed to misplace it, too.”

  No one had seen Arran since his arrest. He hadn’t shown his face since the previous morning. The shipwrights expressed ignorance as they worked on a shocking gash in the side of his vessel, and despite Godefroy’s thorough questioning in nearby taverns and inns, no one seemed to recognize the description or the name.

  “Are you absolutely certain you haven’t seen him?” Megrithe asked the ship’s master again, but Durville just scratched at his beard and shook his head.

  “He don’t tell me his business if it ain’t related to mine, miss.”

  “I find it hard to believe that so much freight wasn’t related to your business, sir. Perhaps you’d like to come to the Guild and explain to us exactly how this iron ended up on your ship, since the captain is unavailable to do the honors. You are an equal partner in the venture, are you not?” she asked innocently.

  “I had nothing to do with it, miss,” Durville protested. “Not a thing. He don’t ask me about what he takes on board. Why would he?”

  “Then you will have little to fear from a thorough interrogation.”

  Durville paled a little as she raised her h
and and beckoned over two of the men she had brought with her to handle the crates. They were large men. They looked bored as the questioning dragged on through noon. They looked less bored when they saw Durville, and that frightened him just as much as Megrithe intended.

  “Try going to Archer Lane,” the master said quickly. “His mother lives there. He went to see her the other day. She might know where he’s gotten to.”

  “Thank you very much, sir,” Megrithe said sweetly as she called off her dogs, who seemed disappointed. “I trust you will remain available to me if I should need any further information.”

  Durville nodded as Megrithe turned and carefully stepped down the gangway.

  “Archer Lane,” she said to the coach driver, and she settled back onto the bench to watch the city streets fly by.

  ***

  Bartolo shifted slightly in his seat to keep his elbow steady as he crossed his legs, watching the two pound coin flashing in and out between his fingers as he flipped and spun the large, flat disc over and under his knuckles. It was probably a little more amusing to him than it should be, but there was something richly fascinating about the warm glint of gold as it caught the candlelight in the darkened, shuttered hall.

  He liked money. Rather, he liked coins, although some people found it hard to tell the difference. His collection was extensive and thorough, locked away in a special room of his home. Rows and rows of gleaming circles sat brightly against pure black velvet, each with a little piece of card underneath with a date upon it. It wasn’t the date the coins were struck – anyone who ever had the privilege to see them knew all that by heart – but the date he had installed each precious addition, acquired through tenacity, exhaustive research, and some very clever outmaneuvering of his few but determined competitors.

  Though the collection was worth a great deal more than the value of the gold and silver it contained, he never really considered himself a very rich man. Not yet, anyway. But he was getting close. There was another treasure locked away among the display boards that would act as currency on a completely different order of magnitude, and when that transaction had been completed, wealthy wouldn’t even begin to describe him.