A Dance of Cloaks

chapter 8

The road was quiet. On one side there was the small bakery. On the other was a smithy known for its owner’s teaching abilities rather than his actual work. Six men approached from the east. They showed no weapons, but their rust-colored cloaks hid much of their bodies. They split, three on one side, three on the other, and then hurried down the road. Each of the groups had a member carrying a small pail of paint.

On the sides of both buildings, hidden to be glimpsed in passing but not facing the entrance, was a smeared circle of ash. The men with the pail wiped it with their cloaks, then dipped their brushes into the dark red mixture. It looked like blood when they began drawing their symbol. They painted an unfilled outline of a hawk’s talons followed by three drops dripping from the foremost claw. The others stood about, watching for guards of both the royal and seedy kind.

They did not see any, for they did not look up. Crouched on the roof of the bakery waited Veliana and two of her men.

“This deep down Warden Street?” Veliana muttered as she watched them paint. “Have they truly grown so bold?”

“They’ve gone unchecked,” said Walt crouched beside her. His face was tanned and lean, his smile missing many teeth. By no means was she friends with him, but he was skilled in battle and reliable when it came to matters of stealth and shadow. For those reasons, she kept him close. Crouched shoulder to shoulder atop the roof, she wished the man would at least take better care of his teeth. Someday his breath would give them away, she just knew it.

“Unchecked?” Veliana said, her voice deeply bitter. “I’m surprised they haven’t encountered the rest of the guilds slicing through our territory. They’re like wolves fighting over a dead deer.”

“Tonight that changes,” said Walt. “Tonight the deer shows it’s not so dead after all.”

“They move,” said Victor, the other man atop the roof with them. He was young with short blonde hair and a scraggly mustache that failed to thicken no matter how long he went without shaving.

Veliana watched as the six men bolted around the sides of the buildings. She unsheathed her daggers as beside her Walt readied a crossbow.

“Six on three,” he said. “I’ll get two before they turn. That leaves two to one for you and Victor when you’re on the ground. Think you can handle that?”

“Don’t insult me,” Veliana said as she leapt off the roof. Her silent landing went unnoticed. High above her, a crossbow bolt whistled through the air. It struck one of the hawk thugs square in the back. He lurched gracelessly to the ground. The remaining five spun. A second died, a bolt piercing his throat. The others charged, weaving side to side in an attempt to thwart the crossbowman.

“Hurry,” Walt said to Victor. “Land behind them. The surprise will be their death.”

“You’re right,” Victor said as he drew his dagger. “Surprise usually is death.”

He stabbed Walt through the eye and then rolled his body off the roof.

The remaining four hawks were almost upon her when Walt’s body hit the ground. Her heart sank at the disgusting sound it made. She had only a moment to glance up and see Victor sneering down at her before daggers cut at her slender frame. She batted them away, but with four to her one, she was sorely pressed.

The hawks spread out further, trapping her in the center of a diamond. Desperate, she lunged at one of the men, thinking if she could kill him quickly she might escape. Her skill was great, and the man would have died under her assault, but then she felt a great weight slam into her back. Stunned, she looked down at the bloody bolt protruding from her shoulder. Blood poured across her clothes.

Her daggers faltered, her meager blocks batted aside like children’s defenses. Something hard struck the back of her head. She had just enough time to curse Victor’s name before blacking out.

When Veliana awoke, she was blindfolded and shackled to a wall. She felt uncomfortably warm, which made even less sense when she realized she was naked. As the rest of her senses came into focus, she heard the popping and crackling of a fire. That explained the sweat that covered her body. But where was she?

“Wake her up,” she heard a voice say. Hoping to hear anything she could use, she kept her body still and pretended to be asleep. To her left, she heard rustling, and then a horrendous heat pressed against her side. She cried out. The sound was just barely coming out of her mouth before a fist struck her. Blood dribbled down her lips. Her tongue ached from where she’d bit it.

Someone yanked the blindfold off her face. With blurred vision she looked at her captor. She saw the gray of his cloak and the shortswords swinging from his hips. She didn’t even need to see his face to know who had captured her.

“I was told you were a gift from guildmaster Kadish,” Thren Felhorn said.

“Forgive me if I’m not the present you were hoping for,” she said. She tried to turn her head to spit, but the shackles around her head and neck prevented it. Feeling horribly sick, she spat out the blood from her mouth. It dribbled down her neck and in between her breasts. Her stomach curled as she felt the blood trickle down her body.

“Whether wanted or not, no good man turns down a gift,” Thren said. A giant muscular man stood beside him. They were outside the city, somewhere near the north judging by the trees that grew within touching distance from the wall…the wall she was helplessly strapped to by buckles and shackles.

“Will, clean her off,” Thren said to the giant man. Will obliged, cleaning off the blood from her chest and neck with a clean rag. She expected him to fondle her breasts or let his fingers linger on her neck, but the man did no such thing.

“Thank you,” she said. She felt her head clear a little. Two torches were stuck in the ground on either side of her, and their light disrupted her eyes’ attempt to adjust to the dark. She thought she saw another form standing beside Thren. It made no sense, though. She thought she saw a young boy, just a child.

“I’ve been patient,” Thren said. He crossed his arms and stood directly before her. “I’ve given James plenty of chances to come to my side. Your Ash Guild is strong, and I hold more respect for it than any other guild. Yet you did something stupid, girl. You plotted against me.”

“No,” she said.

Thren’s fist smashed her face. Will’s rag was there immediately, soaking in the blood she spat. The rage coupled with kindness only confused her more.

“Don’t lie to me,” Thren said. “The Worm has already told me your plan.”

Gileas, Veliana thought as she felt her stomach sink. You bastard.

“What do you want with me?” she asked.

“I need the Ash Guild’s men. We cannot be fractured any longer. If any are to trust me, then all must join me willingly. The second I force loyalty, the other guilds will break away for fear of absorption and disbandment. James has proven stubborn. I will not kill him, though. Too many whisper of me doing such things as is. I cannot dignify those mad ramblings with a kernel of truth.”

“You want me to kill him,” she said, guessing where his thoughts were leading. “I’ll take over, and then bend my knee to you.”

“You’re smart, strong, and beautiful,” Thren said. “It would not be difficult for you to consolidate power.”

“Your plan is suicide,” Veliana said. “A combined attack against all three leaders of the Trifect during their Kensgold? We’ll be slaughtered and broken.”

Thren ran a hand through her long red hair.

“Do not let loyalty cost you everything,” he whispered to her. “Either accept my proposal or suffer the consequences. What is your choice?”

Any other guild member would have turned on their leader. Veliana was unlike any other member.

“James has saved me a hundred times,” she said. “Kill me or let me go. I will not turn traitor and knife him in the dark.”

Thren sighed.

“A shame. I will not kill you, Veliana. That was not part of the deal. Gileas required you as his price for telling me of your conspiring with Gerand. I had no intention of paying it, but then again, I never thought you’d refuse the position I offered you.”

A shiver of disgust ran up and down her spine. Now she understood why she they’d stripped her naked. They’d even healed the wound on her shoulder where the arrow had pierced clean through. She closed her eyes, trying not to think of the ugly man’s black teeth, twisted face, and stubby fingers lacking fingernails. She almost changed her mind. Thren paused, as if waiting for her to break. When she didn’t, he put his back to her.

“Remember, Aaron,” she heard him say. “Things will never go as you plan. Prepare for anything, and be willing to sacrifice everything, even beauty.”

Veliana saw the boy standing next to Thren. He stared back with beautiful blue eyes, eyes that sparkled with tears. Then the emotion died as he turned to look at his father, and the disgust she had thought she’d seen became nothing but a lie.

“Yes father,” she heard the boy say.

If Gileas didn’t take her life, Veliana swore revenge. Not on Thren, not directly. She’d only fail. But the boy, the groomed heir, him she could kill. Him she could make suffer.

Aaron took one torch, Will the other. They walked away from the forest, toward the western gate. The torches faded away and then died. In the starlight, she watched them pass a hobbled form approaching the other way. Her way. She didn’t want to imagine what they might do to James now that she wouldn’t give them an easy way to control the Ash Guild.

Veliana struggled against the chains. The original purpose had been to execute criminals outside the city by leaving them for wolves and coyotes to come and eat. While the punishment was gruesome, the spectacle was rarely witnessed and too random in its length. Fifty years ago, the Vaelor line had instituted beheadings before the castle steps instead. Quicker, bloodier, and a much better spectacle. With how old the chains were, surely they would be rusted and ready to break.

They weren’t. From the corner of her eye she could see one of the manacles on her wrist. Black steel, clean and polished. Thren had brought his own chains. Of course he had. He wouldn’t make such a stupid mistake as letting her escape because of some rusted buckles.

Gileas was getting closer. He was a fat shadow sliding across the wall, worse than any monster in her childhood stories.

“Please gods,” she whispered. “Any god. Get me out. I’ll do anything, but get me out of here.”

She pulled so hard on her bindings that her wrists bled. A fleck of purple fire swarmed around her hands. The few spells she knew were meager, still unrefined. She thought maybe the fire would loosen them, melt them, anything. Instead the heated metal burned her skin. Don’t cry, she told herself. Don’t cry. Don’t cry.

“Hello, girl,” Gileas whispered into her ear. Tears trickled down her cheeks.

“Don’t cry,” he whispered.

“F*ck you,” she whispered back.

He laughed, not at all bothered. She was shackled and helpless. He had all night.

“Nothing personal,” Gileas said as he pressed the tip of his dagger against her right eyebrow. “I’ll milk Gerand and the crown for all the gold I can, then take just as much from Thren and his ilk. I’ll turn the rats on each other, and grow so very wealthy from it.”

He pressed the dagger into her flesh. Blood trickled around her eye. She blinked against its sting.

“All night,” he said as he slowly dragged the dagger downward. “I have all night.”

He cut her eyebrow, her eyelid, and then her eye. She screamed.

Gileas rammed his mouth over hers, drinking in her scream like it was a fine wine. He bit her tongue. She vomited into his mouth. He drank that, too.

He pulled back, smiled at her, and then flew to the side from a brutal kick to his head. He rolled along the hard ground, stopping only when he struck the wall.

A woman wrapped in black and purple stood before Veliana, a serrated dagger in hand. She put her free hand against the vicious wound on Veliana’s face, her fingers touching the flesh so gently. Blood pooled across the cloth but refused to absorb. Veliana looked into the white cloth over her face, seeing only the faintest hint of vibrant green eyes.

“You made an offer,” the woman said to her. “Will you honor it? Swear to Karak your life, and I will take his.”

Veliana could just barely see Gileas out of the corner of her eye. He was retching on the ground, one arm leaning against the wall to prop himself up. Blood continued pouring down her face, her neck, and her slender body. The eye was useless, completely useless. What did it matter if she swore her life to a non-existent god? She wanted vengeance. She wanted to live.

“I swear it,” she said.

“Good,” the faceless woman said. Her hands were a blur about her body. One by one, the locks clicked open. Veliana collapsed into the woman’s arms, unable to stand.

“Your name?” she asked as she clutched the woman’s shoulders, one eye crying tears, the other blood.

“Eliora,” she replied.

Gently, she put Veliana to her knees on the ground and then turned toward Gileas. The Worm had stood and put his back to the wall. He still had his dagger. Clutching her sides gently, she knelt and watched.

“Uncalled for,” she heard the Worm say as the faceless woman approached. “She was given to me. Given…”

He spun, his dagger lunging for Eliora’s chest. It never came close. Eliora slapped it away with an open palm, kicked him in the groin, and then slammed an elbow into his forehead. Gileas collapsed, grunting in pain. When Eliora grabbed his hair to yank his head back, he only laughed.

“Can’t stab a worm,” he said. “We just keep wiggling.”

She stabbed anyway. It punctured only air. Gileas’s clothes were an empty pile on the grass. Eliora kicked them away but saw nothing. She looked as startled as Veliana felt.

“A worm,” Veliana said. “He can’t possibly be…”

But there was nothing there. He was gone.

“Come,” Eliora said, taking Veliana’s hand. “Follow me to my camp. You must meet my sisters.”

The fire in the center of the camp had dwindled to nothing. Eliora tossed on some branches while Veliana huddled against a tree, cold and naked. Winter was approaching, and the night air bit her skin. Eliora drew out two small red bricks and clapped them together above the fire. Sparks rained down upon the wood, instantly bursting restarting the fire.

Veliana knelt beside it, eager for its warmth.

“Where are your sisters?” she asked as shivers ran through her body. Her revulsion at Gileas’s touch remained strong, though it felt like the fire was slowly purifying her body of it.

“They will return in the morning,” Eliora said. “I remained here to keep an eye on another charge of ours. I expected his idiocy to get him and his woman killed, but instead I found you tied and tortured against the wall.”

“I was as surprised as you were,” Veliana said. She turned and put her back to the fire, her arms crossed over her breasts.

“I’m not sure I have clothes appropriate for you,” the faceless woman said. “Perhaps I could go and retrieve the strange man’s…”

“No,” Veliana said, suppressing another shudder. “I’d rather be naked.”

Eliora tilted her head to the side. Veliana swore she could see green eyes studying her through the white mask across her face. Suddenly Eliora lifted the cloth and untwisted the wrappings about her head.

Veliana startled at the woman revealed beneath the wrappings. She was gorgeous by anyone’s standards. Full lips, sharp cheekbones, and vibrant eyes. Their color reminded her of pine needles. She ran a hand through her short hair, pulling out tangles, no easy task with how tight it had been restricted and how covered with sweat it was.

“You’re…” Veliana started to say, then realized how ridiculous it sounded.

“I know,” Eliora said. “Trust me…I know.”

She handed the wrappings to Veliana.

“They’re not much, but you should be able to hide your nakedness.”

Veliana started wrapping the black and purple cloth across her chest, pulling it tight to get as much coverage as she could from the cloth. As she did, Eliora removed more and more of her wrappings from her chest and waist. Beneath she wore a dark shift, the color so thick she needed little of the extra cloth to keep her modesty. Veliana accepted the extra wrappings and continued looping them about her body. She managed to cover all her womanhood, though if she walked through the streets in broad daylight she’d earn herself many a scandalous looks.

“Thank you,” she said, sitting down once more by the fire.

Eliora did not respond. She moved about the camp, preparing a tent that had been left behind unassembled. From a pack nearby she pulled out some tough meat and handed it to Veliana. She wasn’t hungry but ate anyway, preferring the salty taste to the lingering offense of bile and Gileas on her tongue.

“Why did you save me?” Veliana asked.

Eliora glanced up as if the question were stupid.

“Because I wanted to.”

Veliana smirked. It felt like an answer she might have given.

“Be that as it may, I’ve sworn my life. I’d like to know what I’m sworn into.”

The faceless woman punched the last spike of the tent into the dirt with the hilt of her dagger and then stood. Without the wraps, her body looked far more relaxed and feminine. Her breasts actually had room to breathe, and Veliana couldn’t help but feel both jealousy and annoyance. To have that much beauty and hide it? What was the point in that?

The thought of beauty stung her deep. She ran her fingers along the bloody wound from her eyebrow to her chin. No one would think her beautiful now. She was a scarred freak. The eye, what was left of it, ached with every breath she took.

Eliora watched her trace her finger over the cut. Sadness sparkled in her green eyes.

“We are the faceless,” she said, looking away into the forest. Her short black hair fell across her face, hiding her pained expression. “There are only three of us, all priestesses of Karak, and all expelled. We are considered slaves to our sex, so weak and vile that we must live outside the temple with the rest of the sinful world.”

“What did you do?” Veliana asked. She forced her hand away from the wound on her face. It would do no good obsessing over it now.

“I bedded a priest,” Eliora replied. “We were caught. He was given lashes and a ten-year penance. I was forced to become one of the faceless.”

Veliana huddled closer to the warmth of the fire and let the words sink in. A beautiful woman caught in bed with a priest. Rather than deal with the issue, they forced her out, hid her beauty, and declared her vile. She felt anger stir within her stomach. How could she be sworn to become one of them? Why were the gods so cruel to put her in such a situation? Again she promised vengeance upon Thren and his son.

“Your sisters,” Veliana said. “They’re beautiful too, aren’t they?”

Eliora nodded. “They both are. Do you understand why I saved you? To see another woman hurt, humiliated, her beauty stolen by a man…I couldn’t bear it. Better that you become one of us.”

“One of the faceless.”

“My faith in Karak has not wavered,” Eliora said. She sat at Veliana’s side. Gently her fingers traced along the dagger-wound across her eye. “I will see what Pelarak can do about that. He is our greatest priest and strongest healer. I must also have his permission to fully induct you into our order.”

It was all insane. Thren might think her dead, or he might hear of Gileas’s failure. She couldn’t possibly leave James alone and vulnerable, could she? The guild needed her. James needed her. Karak was nothing. The Ash Guild was family.

“I can’t,” Veliana said. “Please. I belong to a guild, the Ash Guild. If I don’t hurry back to them, Thren might destroy everyone I know and love.”

Eliora tapped at her lips, her gaze momentarily distant.

“Thren?” she asked. “As in Thren Felhorn?”

Veliana nodded.

“Tell me everything,” she said.