Nightblade's Vengeance (Blades of the Fallen Book 1) Read online

  Osamu wasn’t sure how long he knelt there, staring at his friend. He was no stranger to death and he had lost those he was close to before, but somehow, this was different.

  Yoshi and Osamu were beyond friends. They were brothers, even if they didn’t share the same bloodline. And Yoshi was heir to the Kingdom. The only heir. His death didn’t just affect Osamu; it affected every person in the land.

  Part of Osamu knew the battle was concluding outside the hut, but he couldn’t bring his mind to focus on anything other than the body in front of him.

  He heard movement behind him. He put his hood back up, turned his face to the door, and saw Sachio standing there, shock on his face. Beyond the dayblade, he saw a handful of villagers being rounded up, Osamu’s nightblades collecting them in the center of the village.

  Osamu’s mind felt as though it kept missing a beat, like a drummer who just couldn’t keep up. There was no reason to round up the villagers. He had made it clear before: their orders were to kill everyone. This wasn’t a battlefield, ruled by the dictates of honor and convention. This was, and always had been, the eradication of the village.

  A thought settled in Osamu’s mind. Sachio was supposed to have been next to them. He should have saved Yoshi. Blind rage fought against Osamu’s iron control.

  He stood up. There was still a mission to complete. This wouldn’t end in total failure. He walked toward the door, prepared to order the nightblades to finish the work they had started. The villagers who had been rounded up were largely women and children, but as horrible as the work was, it was necessary to the survival of the Kingdom.

  Sachio, understanding his commander’s intent, put up his hand to stop Osamu. He grabbed Osamu’s shoulder, trying to stop him from leaving the hut. It was his last mistake. Osamu, his rage overwhelming his control, drew his blade in one smooth motion, slicing right through Sachio’s neck. Osamu didn’t even stop to see the look of surprise on the dayblade’s face. He charged right to the center of the village, where the other blades stared at him, dumbstruck at what he had just done.

  “Kill them all. Burn the village. I want us to move on before the middle of the day.” His tone allowed for no argument, and given what had just happened, no one dared disagree.

  The nightblades went to their terrible work, and Osamu stumbled outside the village.

  He looked out on the scenery, the beautiful, lush valley below him. It was hard to reconcile the natural beauty in front of him with the horrors lurking behind. His mind refused to do anything but run in circles, replaying Yoshi’s death and Sachio’s murder. Yoshi’s death brought tears to his eyes, but Sachio’s murder tore his heart.

  Osamu fell to his knees, his entire body shuddering in doubt.

  Hundreds of leagues away and many days later, a young girl was weeding in her family’s fields. It was hard work, but the girl’s mind kept wandering, mostly to her stomach. Mother had told her there wouldn’t be any breakfast today. She had spoken with a smile, but the girl thought her mother looked like she was about to cry. She often looked like she was about to cry.

  The girl was used to going hungry. Hunger was normal. If you didn’t think about your stomach for long enough, sometimes you could make the hunger go away. The girl tried to focus on getting the weeds out of the field, but today was going to be one of those days where the hunger wouldn’t leave. The girl listened for the sounds of her mother’s voice, calling her and her brother in for lunch. But when she looked up, the sun wasn’t anywhere near the middle of the sky. Her hunger would have to wait.

  A shadow crossed over her, and she looked up to see her brother standing there. As always, her face immediately lit up with a smile. Her brother was a hero. He was big and strong and nice. Someday she wanted to work in the fields as fast as he did. He could do much more than she could.

  Her brother returned her smile. He had been bigger last winter, when their father was still around. Now he was skinny, like her, but still, he was very strong.

  “I thought maybe I would scare you. You were being very still,” he said.

  The girl shook her head. She was ashamed because he was right. She hadn’t been working very hard. But she was also ashamed because she had a secret. She knew where her brother was all the time. The girl didn’t know how she knew, but she did. That was why she was never surprised by him.

  “Don’t worry. You keep picking as many weeds as you can. Maybe we can finish this part of the field by the end of the day if we work together.”

  The girl nodded enthusiastically. If that was what her brother wanted, that was what she would do.

  Her brother smiled, but then just as suddenly, his smile turned to a frown. The girl followed his gaze and saw a man in black robes approaching their house. Instinctively the girl knew who it was.

  “A nightblade,” her brother confirmed.

  Her brother started running toward the house, but when the girl tried to follow, he told her to stay in the fields.

  The girl waited for her brother to stop paying attention, then followed anyway. She wasn’t going to miss a visitor.

  By the time she was able to sneak down close enough to the house, she could hear her mother weeping. It was a hard sound for the girl to hear, but she knew why her mother was crying. There could be only one reason. Their dad wasn’t coming home.

  The man in black stepped out of the house, and the girl scrambled backward. Something was inherently menacing about the man and the steel tied to his waist.

  He gave her a curious look.

  “You can sense me, can’t you?”

  Her confusion must have been evident from the look on her face. He tried again.

  “You can feel me, can’t you? I feel different from the other people, correct?”

  The girl nodded, and the man smiled, a smile that still seemed dangerous. The man knelt down, bringing himself to her level. He looked her squarely in the eyes. “Your father is dead, girl. A blade should hear it from another blade.”

  Somehow the girl had already known this, but her mind was filled with questions, and one came out of her mouth before she could decide whether to stop it or not.

  “How did he die? He was a dayblade, sworn to heal, not to kill.”

  The nightblade didn’t hesitate. “Your father was killed by his own commander, the man who was supposed to protect him.”

  The girl didn’t understand, but she nodded anyway. The man studied her, as if he could see right through her. He stood back up.

  “Good luck, girl.”

  Chapter 1

  The night was cool and fresh with the scents of spring. A full moon had just risen over the horizon, its brightness drowning out the light from stars unfortunate enough to be too close. The wind blew softly over the plains, picking up bite as it brushed over the small deposits of snow still dotting the landscape.

  Asa didn’t mind the breeze. She had trained herself to ignore both heat and cold. The feat was a matter of discipline, a trait she had more than enough of. Her attention was focused on the village in front of her, pulsing with the life of innocents and criminals alike.

  To the untrained eye, the village might have seemed much like any other—decently sized, with dozens of huts and shops and a handful of larger buildings. A casual glance wouldn’t catch anything more interesting.

  An astute observer would notice items that seemed out of place. Two swordsmiths worked in the small village, a fact even more out of place when one considered how far from the mountains they were. The ore had to be hauled a long way to get here. Yet even at this late hour, Asa could sometimes hear the clang of metalwork carried on the breeze. By itself, the presence of two smiths would be odd, but Asa felt what others couldn’t see.

  She sensed the guards walking the perimeter at regular intervals, armed as heavily as a lord’s soldiers even though there was no military. Not out here, far from Haven and the king’s court.

  The locals were behaving strangely as well. In a normal village, at this time of night,
the movement of people would be random. Asa would expect to sense a few villagers out eating at food stands, a few drinking, a few gambling, but most at home, with their families. But even at this distance, she could feel how most of the people out at night had only one destination in mind, a larger building near the center of the village.

  Asa closed her eyes and her sense expanded, reaching out toward the life energy of the village. She could feel a few people in their beds, sleeping soundly, mostly women and children. With her eyes closed, she could easily discern the pattern of the patrols that surrounded the village, more than she had expected. A problem, but not insurmountable.

  Her focus was drawn to the building near the center of village, where a crowd was congregating. It felt packed, but not uncomfortably so. Clusters of people were gathered around, but on one side of the building, there was a warrior, alone except for two bodyguards. Asa took a deep breath and focused on the lone man. As she did, she could feel his own sense, subdued among such a large crowd. The two bodyguards had also developed the sense, but it was weak.

  Asa came back to herself, opening her eyes and scanning her surroundings. Her sense told her she was alone, but it never hurt to be more certain. The fields around her were empty.

  She took another deep breath. The patrols were regular, and if her timing was perfect, she’d be able to slip through them without a problem. Once inside the village, she only had to worry about the chaos she would cause in the hall. The fact that the bodyguards were sense-trained was disturbing. Stealth would be much harder.

  Asa ran the challenges through her mind, but there was never any hesitation. The night was hers.

  As a final check, Asa ran her fingers over all the different blades concealed on her person. The casual observer wouldn’t notice weaponry, and even trained guards weren’t likely to be suspicious. But she was a woman who liked to be prepared. A short sword was strapped to her right thigh, accessible through a wide slit in her traveling clothes. A long knife was strapped to her left thigh, also easy to reach. And a very thin blade was strapped to the inside of her left thigh in case of emergency. A dagger rode on her left arm, and several throwing blades accented her right forearm. Everything was in place.

  Asa strode down toward the village, moving from cover to cover, staying out of sight of the patrols.

  Getting past the patrols was no more than a test of patience. Asa hid behind a pile of brush thirty paces from the edge of the village, relying on her sense to track the movements of the guards. The patrols circled in groups of two, moving slowly, trying and failing at acting natural. Each pair was always in sight of another pair, in theory leaving no gaps to sneak through. But people weren’t perfect. The shadows’ report on the group had been scant. The village was too small and tight-knit, hard to penetrate, but the Council of the Blades believed it was mostly angry ex-soldiers and disgruntled civilians. They had some training and were getting better, but they weren’t an army, not yet.

  The lack of training showed in their movements. Asa could sense this as one group would fall behind and then rush to catch up to the pair in front of them, causing other pairs to speed up behind them. Their pacing was uneven, and soon Asa’s chosen route into the village would be hidden from view. Until then, she bided her time, letting the cold breeze blow through her robes as though they were open windows. Spring was coming, but the weather seemed to have forgotten.

  The gap appeared, one pair pausing just out of sight. Asa sprang into action, sprinting silently behind another pair, trusting her dark clothing to hide her from a wayward glance. The pair she passed behind was oblivious to what was happening behind them. And why not? Their backs were supposed to be guarded by the following pair.

  In just a moment, Asa was among the huts on the outskirts of the village. From there, she could easily approach the large hall she had pinpointed earlier as the group’s meeting place. She used her sense to avoid anyone wandering the paths between the huts. There were plenty of dark corners, and she was never in danger of being discovered.

  The smell of sizzling beef from a nearby food stand was almost too tempting to pass up. She had subsisted on trail rations for most of the past moon, and this part of the Kingdom was known for the quality of their cattle. She could imagine the fat melting off the meat and catching fire on the charcoal underneath. The aroma tested her will to continue without stopping.

  Her next challenge was getting into the hall. She could sense the people inside and the pair of guards at what she assumed was the front of the building. A few moments later she came in sight of the hall, and her suspicion was confirmed. Two guards stood at attention at the door, and their easy and alert stance let Asa know right away these two were far more experienced than the patrols she’d gotten past.

  She discarded options almost as fast as they came to her. She could try to get onto the roof and hear what was happening, but with her target and the two bodyguards being sense-trained, they’d likely notice her. There were windows in the hall, but if she loitered outside them, she would also be sensed. Killing the two guards outside was an option, but a huge risk. The village, although quiet, still had a number of people moving around, and the bodies would likely be discovered before the meeting was over.

  Deception was her only chance. Her intended ploy brought risks as well, but was most likely to succeed. If it failed, she could chance killing the guards.

  Asa took a single breath. She threw up her hood so her face was in shadow and walked into the lights.

  The guards noticed her immediately. She could sense it in the way their stances shifted. They were wary, but not worried. Asa wasn’t surprised. She wasn’t a tall woman, and her stature would appear slight, even under the generous folds of her traveling cloak.

  Asa approached them slowly, trying to seem as though she posed no threat to them. She added just the slightest sway to her hips, accenting her femininity. The elders claimed they were trying to discover ways to use the sense to manipulate minds, but Asa would believe such a possibility when she experienced it herself. Until then, there were other ways to manipulate people. Especially men.

  She stopped a short pace away from the sentries. She wanted to be close to them, both for them to get a good look at her, but also to be within easy reach of their long swords. If the worst came to pass, she would be inside their guards even if they had the reflexes to draw their blades. Her short weapons would be a definite advantage.

  “Halt right there,” one of the guards said, realizing too late she had already stopped. He covered up his mistake quickly. “What is your business here?”

  “I am one of his shadows. I came here to speak to him.”

  The other guard, the one Asa labeled the smart one, frowned. “He’s holding a meeting right now. What is so important it can’t wait?”

  Asa shook her head. “I can’t say, but I can wait until he finishes.”

  The second guard was still suspicious. Asa decided to take a risk based on a whisper she had heard from a shadow. Her target liked women, perhaps more than was good for him. “My news is important, but I want to catch him before he goes back to his house.” She lowered her voice. “I want him to myself tonight.”

  Slowly, the second guard raised his hand and drew back her hood. The first guard whistled when he saw her face. Asa was beautiful, and she knew it. The first guard couldn’t help himself, and Asa was grateful he was unintentionally supporting her story.

  “I can see what he sees in you.”

  She turned to him and gave him a look full of promise. “Thank you.”

  The second guard was the one she had to convince. “I need to search you for weapons,” he said.

  Asa needed to bluff the guards or she’d have to kill them. “You’re welcome to, if that’s what you want. But I can assure you, my weapons aren’t steel.” Her voice held a hint of warning.

  The second guard was willing to call her bluff, but the first one stopped him. “Wait. If she’s with him, do you think it’s a good idea
to proceed? You know how jealous he gets.”

  The smart guard hesitated, and Asa stayed there, her posture open and relaxed.

  The silence lasted only for a moment before the second guard made his decision. “You’re right.” He turned to Asa. “I’ll escort you in. If you try anything, you won’t live long enough to regret it.”

  “Thank you.” Internally, she felt a rush of relief. She was certain killing the guards would make the rest of the evening far more challenging.

  She stopped using her sense, cutting herself off from her gift. Without it, she felt naked and exposed, surrounded by darkness. But if she used her sense in the hall, the man she had come for would certainly order her death.

  The second guard opened the door and let her in. She took a single step inside and waited for the guard to close the door behind them. She wouldn’t give him any chance to doubt her.

  Fortunately, all the attention in the room was on the speaker—a good thing, as she was the only woman in a room of about thirty men. No surprise. The chance of any women being included in such a gathering was almost zero.

  Asa could understand why attention was drawn to the front, where Takashi stood on a simple, small, raised platform. It was the first time she had seen Takashi, and she was surprised by him. All the reports talked about him being larger than life, but in stature he was perfectly normal and unassuming. She could see by the way he held himself that he was a dangerous man, fully in control of his body, but if you passed him on the street, you wouldn’t think twice about the encounter.

  But his stature was far overshadowed by his presence, which elicited an almost physical sensation. Asa felt it the moment she stepped into the room. Takashi didn’t shout or even speak loudly, but his voice carried throughout the hall, and he had the full attention of every person there. She had arrived well into his speech, but it wasn’t hard to catch up.