At the Sign of the Crow and Moon: A Sorcery Ascendant Prequel Novella Read online

  This book is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents and dialogues are products of the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to any persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  AT THE SIGN OF THE CROW AND MOON

  All rights reserved.

  Published by Mitchell Hogan

  Copyright © 2016 by Mitchell Hogan

  First Printing, 2016

  Table of Contents

  Copyright

  At the Sign of the Crow and Moon

  To the Reader

  Sorcery Ascendant Sequence

  Also by Mitchell Hogan, the Sorcery Ascendant Sequence, in reading order:

  A Crucible of Souls US

  UK : DE : CA : AU

  Blood of Innocents US

  UK : DE : CA : AU

  A Shattered Empire US

  UK : DE : CA : AU

  At the Sign of the Crow and Moon

  Ten years before the events of the Sorcery Ascendant Sequence…

  “We go in quickly,” Felicienne Shyrise said.

  She stood next to her three-tiered Dominion board, toying with one of the tiny pieces: her favorite, the Crow and Moon. It was fleet and hard to catch and, if moved strategically, cleverly, could execute a devastating closing move.

  “I’ll post some of the street children to keep a watch for us, but we tell them to scatter before we go in. Larard will have a few of his perverted cronies with him, but if we can separate him from them, they’ll run. They know what they’ve done, and they don’t want to swing on the end of a rope.”

  The murders along the canals had been particularly gruesome, and when the locals had become frustrated with the city watch’s inept inquiries and lack of progress, they’d turned to her. She’d looked into the odd murder or two before, but she’d built her reputation on finding missing goods and people, as well as sorting out disputes. A group made up of relatives of the deceased had passed a hat around and come to hire her. She’d almost said no, since it wasn’t her area of expertise, and it was far more dangerous territory. And what they’d scraped together didn’t come close to covering her expenses, but the despair on their faces made her reconsider. That, and the chance to give the city watch a poke in the eye.

  Her assistant, Avigdor, had a pained expression on his face. He sat across the office from her while the mercenaries she’d hired a week ago, when she realized she might need some muscle for this job, lounged against a wall in between stacks of books that had overflowed from stuffed bookcases. Squall and Whisper, they called themselves. One short and lean and garrulous, one big and tall and quiet. False names, as you’d expect. Both shrewd, and too competent to be hiring themselves out to her, but she’d look into that later.

  “Don’t worry,” she said to Avigdor. “You’re not coming along.” She paid him well, but not well enough to risk his life. She’d worked hard to build up her investigative business from nothing, and without him it would implode. Felice was the brains behind the outfit and its driving force, but Avigdor was the organizational genius. There was no one else offering similar services in The Capital, the first city of the Mahruse Empire. Well, at least no one not directly in the employ of the Emperor.

  “I’m not… I prefer the paperwork,” he said, slightly embarrassed. “The research. And I’m still recovering.”

  How he’d caught a case of the bloody flux, she’d never know, but he was always eating something. Perhaps he’d ingested some off meat from a street vendor.

  “Sounds simple,” Squall said. He was the lean one, with a slender sword his hand was always near.

  Whisper grunted.

  Squall chuckled. “No, nothing ever is,” he said.

  “They’re torturing and killing people,” Felice reminded them. “For their own amusement. The neighborhood is living in fear. If things get ugly, don’t hesitate to—”

  “Run them through?” suggested Squall. “Stick them? Slice their—”

  “Yes, I get it. Just”—she waved a hand—“do what you need to.” She wasn’t used to this type of job. Violence was a rarity in her line of work. The occasional cheating husband caught in the act might lash out, but most were contrite and ashamed.

  Squall gave her a mocking grin and a half salute. She marked the gesture he made: it was similar to the one the soldiers in the city used. He’d made the motion with familiarity, which meant he was either an ex-soldier or mocking her or still one…

  “I’ve made a copy of our investigation,” Avigdor said. “So when you deliver Larard to the city watch, you can hand over the evidence we’ve gathered. It’s more than enough to convince them of his guilt.”

  “And there should be more in his house,” Felice said. “But we’ll leave that to the watch. They shouldn’t be able to stuff that up. Squall, Whisper, do you need anything else?”

  Squall shook his head. “We’re yours to command. At least until your coin dries up.”

  “Let’s go, then.” Felice replaced the Dominion piece, then tugged on her red coat and buckled her knife belt around her waist. She’d been training with them for a while, and felt confident her skill with the two blades was now an asset rather than a liability.

  Following Squall and Whisper, she paused just outside her door. A sign sporting a full moon behind the silhouette of a crow was bolted above the doorway. Something easily recognizable to the mostly illiterate citizens. She’d purchased the building and opened the office in East Farewell three years ago, and she was still here.

  Not for long, she vowed. A high-profile case like this, satisfactorily resolved, and she was going places.

  ~ ~ ~

  The girl’s temperature was dropping fast. Blood seeped from a deep gash in her side, soaking into Felice’s lap. It was warm and sticky, and Felice didn’t care if it ruined the trousers she’d bought only the other day. She applied more pressure to the wound and banged on the ceiling of the carriage with a fist. “Hurry up! There’s another silver in it if she makes it there alive.”

  A silver for a life. How bleak.

  Felice’s seat rattled as the carriage sped along cobbled roads, bumping into and out of ruts worn in the stone by wheels over the years. Through the window, globes of light flashed past. The Sorcerers’ Guild lit many of the main thoroughfares with their arcane spheres, though they did little to penetrate the thick early morning mist. The same mist that slowed their progress.

  “I’m sorry, Mistress Shyrise, I really am.” On the seat opposite, Squall had his sheathed sword clutched in one hand, and beside him sat the brawny Whisper, with only a dagger tucked into his belt.

  “I paid her,” Squall continued, “and told her to go. I didn’t know she’d hang around.”

  “Her name’s Flo,” Felice snapped. “And I pay you to be aware. Not to miss details.”

  She knew she shouldn’t be angry at Squall, but she couldn’t help herself. Flo’s brother was one of those Larard had killed, and the girl had wanted to help bring her brother’s murderer to justice. Felice smoothed sweat-damp hair away from Flo’s face. She hadn’t wanted to use the urchins, hadn’t wanted them involved with Larard. But they’d helped her on previous cases, and with her limited resources, it had been the only way to track him down.

  Felice had thought she’d covered all the angles, taken all the precautions. And this was the result. Larard had escaped, and a girl was dying. His cronies had run, as expected, but Larard had managed to gather up most of the evidence and torch the place on his way out. And in the process had run into Flo, who’d tried
to stop him, and caught a foot of cold steel for being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Felice had had to choose between saving the girl, getting the evidence, and catching Larard—she could only do two. She’d salvaged what evidence she could from the fire—scraps of scorched parchment—while Squall and Whisper had spirited Flo outside to safety.

  Not for the first time, Felice wished she had more power, more resources, more connections. Then no one would have been hurt.

  “Flo? Is that short for something?” Whisper said.

  The carriage veered sharply to the left, and Felice held the girl tight. “What? I don’t know. I didn’t ask.” She should have. She took pride in knowing things. You never knew when a tidbit of information might come in handy.

  “She’ll recover,” Whisper said.

  Squall glanced at him, then nodded.

  And not for the first time, Felice wondered which of the two made the decisions. Whisper was probably right. But there was a lot of blood soaking Felice’s pants. And there was always a chance something could go wrong. A nicked artery, or an infection of the wound.

  She had plans in motion. Plans that would set her up to take advantage of the nobles’ largesse. Plans that didn’t involve being responsible for the death of a young girl.

  Pignuts, she cursed to herself.

  “I’ll bloody take them all down,” she hissed. Sticking cold steel into a street urchin, a waif, and for what? Nothing.

  Because the girl had seen Larard and tried to stop him.

  Because Felice had placed her there.

  Flo’s blood was on her hands. It was her fault.

  But if playing Dominion had taught her anything, it was that no cause was hopeless.

  ~ ~ ~

  Felice tipped her purse and poured her remaining silver and copper ducats into the physiker’s cupped hands.

  “It’s a single stab wound, Andzew,” she said. “Take care of her. I’ll be back in the afternoon.”

  Flo lay on a bed with clean sheets, which were already stained crimson. She let out low moans of distress.

  Andzew, who they’d roused from his warm bed far earlier than he usually rose, stared at the coins with bleary eyes.

  “Y-yes,” he stammered. “Of course. She needs assistance, but…this isn’t enough.”

  Felice had had occasion to use Andzew before. He could be trusted to keep her business secret. “I’m good for it.” She held the physiker’s gaze. Maybe she could sell one of her investments. She’d soon make it all back, and then some, at the Dominion tournament coming up.

  Andzew pursed his lips, then broke eye contact. “Of course.”

  Felice looked at Squall and Whisper, expecting them to comment on the ducats she’d spent on Flo’s welfare, which was far more than she’d paid them for this job. But Squall was merely poking around the physiker’s workroom, and Whisper stared back blankly, as if he didn’t have a thought in the head perched atop his seven-foot frame. Felice knew different, though. She was more and more certain Whisper was actually the brains of the outfit, and Squall the killer. She imagined they took quite a few people off guard.

  Andzew dumped the coins unceremoniously onto a table and quickly washed his hands. He then examined the makeshift dressing they’d applied to the wound.

  “You two.” Felice pointed at the mercenaries. “We’ll settle this today. You’ll be paid, so don’t worry on that score.”

  Whisper remained motionless. Squall glanced at the big man then turned to Felice and nodded.

  ~ ~ ~

  Felice crouched beside the door of one of the houses Larard used as a bolt-hole. Squall had confirmed Larard was inside, along with a couple of thugs, as only a few minutes ago the murderer had come outside for more firewood. Since then, the place had been deathly quiet.

  She nodded to Whisper.

  Wood splintered and shrieked in protest as Whisper’s shoulder hammered into the door, and it broke into pieces. Squall darted into the semidarkness inside, blade drawn, and Felice followed the pair.

  Time to put an end to Larard and his depravations once and for all.

  A dozen hard-looking men and women aimed crossbows at them. Soldiers, by their dark gray uniforms and black boots. Standard-issue weapons, mass manufactured and stamped with the Mahruse Empire’s crest.

  “By the ancestors,” Felice said as both Squall and Whisper dropped their weapons and raised their hands.

  The room was in disarray. Overturned chairs were strewn across the floor, along with broken glass. Two men she recognized as Larard’s were kneeling, badly beaten, with their hands tied, and two more lay motionless in pools of blood. Larard himself, the degenerate hulking blacksmith, was tied to a chair and glaring venom at Felice and everyone around him.

  Sorcery, realized Felice. It has to be. There was no other way to conceal the entrance of so many men and the subsequent commotion.

  Sitting at a table, one hand holding a crystal glass containing wine, was a nondescript woman. Short brown hair, graying at the scalp. Brown eyes. Serviceable clothes of middling quality. She could have been anyone. If you passed her in the street, you wouldn’t have looked at her twice.

  Felice observed the woman’s boots under the table: custom made from leather of the highest quality. There was a faint scent of jasmine and rose in the air, and an even fainter ambergris—an expensive perfume and hard to obtain. Felice should know. She had a few ounces squirreled away for special occasions, procured in a not-so-legal manner. Why should the nobles keep all the good stuff?

  “I’m sorry,” the woman said. “The early bird and all that.” She nodded to her men, and they dragged the bodies and the bound men outside, straight through the pools of blood, leaving wide smears across the floor. Tipping the chair Larard was tied to, they bundled him out as well. Its legs scraped jarringly.

  Felice narrowed her eyes. To command these men, and sorcery along with them, this was no ordinary noble. Felice knew she was in trouble. A great deal of trouble.

  “Who the hells are you?” she said. She realized she was tugging one of her earrings and willed herself to stop. The fact was, though, the power this woman commanded sent chills through her. In her haste to catch Larard and his men, Felice had broken two of her rules: Watch your back, and always have contingency plans.

  “You’ve arrived a little later than we expected,” the woman said. “But you’ve done surprisingly well. Better than my men did, and they’re trained to do their job well. Congratulations are in order. I applaud you. But you’ve created problems for us, Felicienne Shyrise.”

  She knew her name. This was getting worse and worse. “In what way?” Felice snapped. “We tracked Larard and his perverted friends.”

  The woman smiled. “Quite right. Larard is in my custody now, although, alas, his two surviving men will not see the next dawn.”

  “My job’s done, then,” Felice gambled. “We’ll see ourselves out.” It was a feeble ploy, but it would give her time to think.

  Both Squall and Whisper nodded eagerly, stopping when crossbows twitched in their direction.

  The woman shook her head. “Oh, dear me, no. Please stay a moment. Indulge me.”

  Felice drew a deep breath. They didn’t have many options unless they wanted to end up as pincushions. “What do you want?”

  “I want you to repair the damage you’ve done.”

  “What do you…” Oh…they were already onto Larard, but had been using him as bait for bigger fish.

  “I see you’ve finally twigged what’s going on. You’ve just undermined a major criminal investigation, and a far more dangerous man than Larard will likely get away. I want you to tell me why I shouldn’t arrest you right now.”

  “Arrest me?” Felice said. “At least a dozen people have been killed by Larard. He had to be stopped.”

  “You’re a messy amateur. Go back to your missing cows and philandering husbands.”

  Felice’s hands clenched into fists as she bit back a sharp retort. “I found Larard bot
h times, when the city watch couldn’t.”

  “The building was burned to the ground, and I understand a girl in your employ was badly wounded. Sloppy work.”

  “I managed to salvage some evidence. Papers Larard tried to burn.”

  The woman’s eyes glittered with interest. “Give them to me.” Her tone indicated she wouldn’t take no for an answer.

  Felice didn’t have much choice. She reached into her shirt, drew out the black-edged papers, and handed them over. “They could point to Larard’s employer. At least, I assume that’s who you’re after.”

  The woman sniffed. “We’ll see.” She frowned at Felice, wrinkling her nose.

  “Who are you tracking?” Felice asked. “I have information on Larard’s movements. It could prove useful.”

  The woman leaned forward. “It’s been brought to my attention that you’re proficient at Dominion. How good are you?”

  The question took Felice by surprise. “Ah…I’m good.”

  Squall snorted, and she gave him a rebuking stare.

  “From what I’ve seen, she’s better than good. Sorry, Miss Shyrise, but you are. And I want to get out of here with my skin intact.”

  “Excellent.” The woman rubbed her hands together as if there were a chill in the air. “Please, Felice—may I call you that? Your friends do. I feel we’re getting to know each other better. Don’t be modest. It ill suits you. We need to track our target at the Middle Tier Winter Dominion Tournament. I already know you’re enrolled to play, but I need to know if you expect to reach the finals.”

  That was Felice’s plan. The prizes for this tournament were substantial, and people noticed who won, and who played well. People with power and resources.

  Felice nodded. “Yes. I’ll make them. And with luck, I’ll win.”

  “Luck is for amateurs.” The woman placed the wineglass on the table, and Felice noted she’d never taken a sip. “I have to admit,” the woman continued, “you’ve done well, finding out who’s been behind those awful, grisly murders along the canals.”