Prologue
No one expects a dead man to walk through the front door. This time was no different. The dozen patrons of the Soul’s Lament went silent as the cobbled door whined on its hinges, and Izrak Laav crossed over the threshold, ducking his head as he passed inside.
A trio of men, grim faces flushed, eyes glazed in a half-drunken stupor, sat at a table near the door. Shifting in their chairs as the dead man approached, they whispered as quivering hands hovered over unseen knives. Izrak glanced at the vagrants, the iron studs of his jerkin and mail coat glinting in the flickering torchlight. They withered under the glare of eyeless pits and yellowed gleam of his lipless grin.
The dead man moved on, his pale hand falling away from the pommel of his longsword.
Izrak took a seat at what had become his customary table, in a dark corner at the far end of the tavern. Unhooking his scabbard from his belt, he placed the sword against the moldering wall beside him. Resting his mail-coated elbows on the table, Izrak leaned over, ran his fingertips through the few strands of blonde hair hanging from under his worn-leather skullcap. Of course, whatever soothing sensation this used to bring was now illusory. The dead man could not feel it. Old habits…
Rats scurried across the swollen, rotten floorboards, their scratching blending with the torrents of rain cascading over the walls outside. The incessant drone grew louder the more he sought to block it out.
“Izrak Laav, dread mercenary and favored customer!” A sonorous voice sounded from behind the bar counter. “What can I provide for Nochnoy’s most intransigent soul?”
“You missed your calling as a poet,” Izrak said, his voice a rasp of wind over an endless sea of sand. “The usual, Evpat.”
A snicker cut through the din. “The usual?” One of the drunk men near the entrance called over his shoulder. “What does a corpse need food for?” His companions joined in his laughter.
“Shut it, Yostap!” Evpat slammed a mug he was cleaning on the countertop. “At least he pays. If only the living were so generous… You still owe me two kops for last night!”
Yostap shrugged, waved the comment away. “Yeah, yeah.” He took a pull from his mug and turned back to his table. “You’ll get it.” Chairs screeched as hushed conversations resumed.
Leaning back, the mercenary lifted his head and sighed. The usual. Izrak’s dead gaze drifted towards the ceiling as his thumb ran over the rough, woven pouch at his hip. Maybe I have lingered here for too long….
Floorboards whined under the approach of soft footfalls. Izrak looked down. A delicate figure, hooded and cloaked in black, stood at the other side of the table. A pair of ivory hands emerged from beneath the cloak and, as spirits dancing in mist, she signed: May I sit?
“You do not have to ask, Olesia.” She nodded beneath the hood and sat. Izrak looked upon her for a moment. “They still have not restored your voice, even after all this time?”
They do not forgive. You know their punishments are severe. A century is nothing to them. Though it is rather fitting, is it not? A puppet… without a voice of her own.
Izrak’s fingers bit into the sodden wood of the table—fangs sinking into flesh. “I will find a way to restore your voice. I owe you that much.”
Yemor deserved to die. I regret nothing. You do not owe me a thing, Ferryman.
The mercenary released his grip. “What tidings then, does an Omen bring?”
Olesia lowered her hood. The Omen’s feathered waves of raven hair shimmered in the torchlight, bound at the crown with a silver circlet, a rich amethyst at its center glittering upon her porcelain brow. Her ashen eyes were storms, roiling clouds streaked with flecks of violet lightning. The corners of her mauve lips curled upward as she drew a single bronze coin from the folds of her sleeve. The coin’s face bore a gaunt visage, gazing upwards in agony, with gnarled fingers clawing at the cheeks as its tongue hung limp over a pointed chin.
The Omen set the coin in front of him. Death.
A Coin of Akheron only meant one thing to the undead slaves of The Call. A rogue warrior, a damned soul whose passage over the River had been purchased with their disobedience and treachery. Izrak took the coin. “Who?”
The Black Bear.
“Zheso Strakh… I suppose it was always a matter of time.” Izrak placed the coin in the hidden pocket of his satchel, its soft clink a death knell as it joined the other four. “So be it.” The mercenary stood, clasped his sword to his belt.
Olesia rose from her seat. He was last sighted leaving Ryaz, not two days past, heading south into the Shuvo. Perhaps you may pick up his trail in the forest.
With a parting smile, Olesia lifted her hood, her spectral face shrouded in shadow once more. She rose, and darkness seethed around her as the torchlight flickered, then dimmed, covering the tavern like a pall. All sound faded to a distant whisper. Then, the creeping shadows collapsed back into the center, and the Omen was gone. The patrons of the Soul’s Lament peered about, eyes narrowed, scratching their heads, as though waking from sleep.
The mercenary looked at the old barkeeper as he was heading into the kitchen. “Never mind the food, Evpat.” Izrak left three kops on the table and moved towards the entrance.
Evpat spun about. “But Avdoya just finished cutting the pork. What shall I do with it?”
A flash of lightning silhouetted Izrak as he opened the door. Heedless of the rain pouring in through the portal, he glanced back over his shoulder at the vagrants. “Feed it to the dogs. For they will not have my bones to gnaw upon.” Prowling winds howled, and the mercenary stepped out into the storm.
If you enjoyed the prologue, continue the story in Part 1 of A Valley of Shadow, available to read now in serial format on The Arcanist. The prelude tale to A Valley of Shadow can be found here: Even the Dead Suffer.
A Valley of Shadow first published by The Arcanist.
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