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  The Splinter Men came through the mist like black-clad wraiths, silent even down to the soundless slap of their feet.

  They looked alive, almost. Their pale skin and expressionless faces were little different from those of living Nidalese, and if there was a whiff of old blood and chill earth to them, it was no worse than might cling to any gravedigger. But the burning hunger in their dead black eyes betrayed them, and the splinters driven like wooden stitches through their lips told their name.

  Isiem had hoped there might only be four Splinter Men, corresponding to the four empty shacks ringing the central hut, but the gods did not choose to smile on him there. At least a dozen of the maimed murderers streamed toward them, dragging two other bloodied, apparently insensible people. Through the dense fog, Isiem couldn't see if their victims were alive or dead, but in either case the two of them hardly looked able to stand up on their own, let alone offer any resistance. They'd be of no use in a fight.

  The Splinter Men seemed to think the same, if they thought anything. Twenty yards away, they let their victims fall to the ground. Focus returned to their hollow eyes, and they raised their heads like blind men hearing music. An awful yearning contorted their dead faces as they turned in wordless unison toward Ascaros.

  They said nothing. No threats, no demands. Abandoning their victims, the Splinter Men simply rushed toward the shadowcaller with their long knives drawn ...

  The Pathfinder Tales Library

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  Master of Devils by Dave Gross

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  Song of the Serpent by Hugh Mattews

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  Called to Darkness by Richard Lee Byers

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  "Blood and Money by Steven Savile

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  "A Tomb of Winter's Plunder" by Tim Pratt

  "Misery's Mirror" by Liane Merciel

  "The Twelve-Hour Statue" by Michael Kortes

  "In the Event of My Untimely Demise" by Robin D. Laws

  "Shattered Steel" by F. Wesley Schneider

  "Proper Villains" by Erik Scott de Bie

  "Killing Time" by Dave Gross

  "Thieves Vinegar" by Kevin Andrew Murphy

  "In Red Rune Canyon" by Richard Lee Byers

  "The Fate of Falling Stars" by Andrew Penn Romine

  "Bastard, Sword" by Tim Pratt

  "The Irregulars" by Neal F. Litherland

  Nightblade © 2014 Paizo Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means digital, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, or conveyed via the Internet or a website without prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embedded in critical articles and reviews.

  Paizo, Inc., the Paizo golem logo, Pathfinder, the Pathfinder logo, and Pathfinder Society are registered trademarks of Paizo Inc.; Pathfinder Accessories, Pathfinder Adventure Card Game, Pathfinder Adventure Path, Pathfinder Campaign Setting, Pathfinder Cards, Pathfinder Flip-Mat, Pathfinder Map Pack, Pathfinder Module, Pathfinder Pawns, Pathfinder Player Companion, Pathfinder Roleplaying Game, Pathfinder Tales, and Rise of the Runelords are trademarks of Paizo Inc.

  Cover art by Maichol Quinto.

  Cover design by Emily Crowell.

  Map by Crystal Frasier.

  Paizo Inc.

  7120 185th Ave NE, Ste 120

  Redmond, WA 98052

  paizo.com

  ISBN 978-1-60125-662-1 (mass market paperback)

  ISBN 978-1-60125-663-8 (ebook)

  Publisher's Cataloging-In-Publication Data

  (Prepared by The Donohue Group, Inc.)

  Merciel, Liane.

  Nightblade / Liane Merciel.

  p. ; cm. — (Pathfinder tales)

  Set in the world of the role-playing game, Pathfinder and Pathfinder Online.

  Issued also as an ebook.

  ISBN: 978-1-60125-662-1 (mass market paperback)

  1. Wizards--Fiction. 2. Magic--Fiction. 3. Good and evil--Fiction. 4. Imaginary places--Fiction. 5. Pathfinder (Game)--Fiction. 6. Fantasy fiction. 7. Adventure stories. I. Title. II. Series: Pathfinder tales library.

  PS3613.E727 N53 2014

  813/.6

  First printing October 2014.

  Printed in the United States of America.

  To Ron and Lauren,

  for letting us borrow the best writers' retreat in the world.

  Chapter One

  Plague Birds

  That's the last of the stevedores," Ena said. The hooded dwarf unfolded herself from her perch atop the lintel of a barrelmaker's shop, collapsed the miniature spyglass she'd been using to watch the warehouse in the distance, and swung down to the street with a nimbleness that seemed at odds with her stocky figure. "We'll give them a few minutes to clear out, and then it should just be us and the night watchmen around the warehouse." She raised an eyebrow at Isiem, the gesture almost invisible in the shadows of her hood. "You're sure you can handle them?"

  "Two untrained men with cudgels?" the Nidalese wizard asked dryly. "I should hope so."

  "Without killing them, please," anoth
er of their conspirators snapped. She was a tall woman, almost as tall as Isiem himself, and although the red scarf wrapped around the lower half of her face masked her features, he guessed she had some elven blood. It was in the inflections of her voice, the litheness of her movements—and her peremptory tone. He'd never met the woman before, and the rebels recognized no ranks, yet she commanded him like a servant.

  But it wasn't worth the argument. It had been just over a year since Isiem joined the rebellion in Pezzack, and in that time he had learned that the rebels were an impossible bundle of contradictions. Merciless and merciful, crude but idealistic, largely disorganized yet capable of orchestrating sophisticated attacks.

  Their assault on the warehouse was one such operation.

  For years, the provincial town of Pezzack had been a nest of rebellion against the diabolists who controlled Imperial Cheliax. Its remoteness and the natural barricade of the mountainous, monster-infested wastelands to its east made it difficult for Queen Abrogail's agents to control. Despite two fiery assaults, infighting among the rebel factions, and an ongoing campaign by the Chelish navy to starve the resistance into submission, Pezzack remained effectively free.

  That naval blockade was the reason that Isiem stood out here, shivering on a frigid winter's night, amid a ring of accomplices whose names and faces he did not know. Other than Ena, they were strangers to him, and he to them. Hoods and masks hid their faces; an illusion guised his own. None of them used names. If Chelish agents or insurgents from a rival faction caught one of them—as had happened before, and would happen again—that unlucky captive would have little to betray.

  The only thing the conspirators shared was their goal. Ena's informants had whispered that something terrible was secreted in the crates that the stevedores had just unloaded into the loyalist-controlled warehouse on the water. What it was, the informants hadn't known, but it was deemed dangerous enough that Ena had contacted the best in the rebellion for help.

  "I wasn't planning to kill the watchmen," Isiem said, sifting through the spell components arranged in his top pocket for easy access. He didn't need to re-sort them—he knew them all with calm, sure familiarity—but the ritual soothed him in the quiet moments before action. "I'm well aware that it does no good to turn their families against us. Besides, it's hardly necessary. They pose little obstacle to our goal."

  "Likely to be bigger problems inside," Ena said. "Still don't know what, though. The devilers won't leave valuables unguarded, but they won't use obvious guards either. Whatever's protecting their goods, it's hidden and it's not living. They didn't have any extra guards on the ship, nor meals carried down to the hold. My spies saw nothing. Might be the cargo itself is the danger."

  "We should burn it," one of the other masked conspirators interjected. His voice, like the half-elf's, was unfamiliar to Isiem. Ena seemed to have reached farther afield than usual in putting together this night's crew. "Bar the doors and burn down the whole warehouse."

  "That is a profoundly stupid idea," Ena said. "Profoundly." The dwarf stretched her legs and started toward the warehouse, melting in and out of the shadows effortlessly in her mottled gray cloak. "Let me remind you: the point is to find out what the devilers are doing. If their cargo is valuable, we want to steal it and sell it. If it's not, we want to find out what their plans are. We can't do that if we burn it, now can we?"

  "And the rest of the warehouse is filled with food," the woman in the red scarf added. "That's what raised our suspicions initially. How often do ships carrying food get through Governor Sawndannac's blockade? She's been trying to starve the Pezzacki into submission for months. But even if it was a ruse to ensure we'd take in their cargo, the fact remains that the warehouse is stocked with food. We can't waste it."

  Chastened, the man offered no answer. Ena didn't seem to want one. The dwarf turned back to them long enough to hold one finger up to her lips, under her hood, then pointed to the right side of the warehouse and held up two more. With that, she slipped off to the warehouse's left side, facing the water, where a smaller side door stood beside the large loading doors. The dwarf crouched against the wall, working on the padlock that secured the smaller door.

  Isiem went the other way. He could see the watchmen coming; their lanterns cut bright lines through the night's salty fog. They kept close together, sheltering themselves against the dark. Their oiled cloaks were beaded with damp, their hoods pulled low so that he could not see their faces.

  Not that he needed to. As the watchmen passed a narrow alley between two warehouses, Isiem struck. He sifted a pinch of fine sand from a pocket, letting it trickle to the ground while he spoke the words of magic that would send his unknowing victims into slumber.

  As its last word left his lips, Isiem's spell seized the watchmen. Without a word of protest, they slumped gently into the fog.

  Isiem swiftly bound and gagged the men. They woke as soon as Isiem stuffed the rags into their mouths, but were too startled to offer much resistance. One after the other, he pulled the struggling watchmen into the alley and out of casual view. Morning would find them stiff, cold, and scared—but they'd live to see the new day, and that was all the kindness he could spare them.

  At his signal, two of the other conspirators took up the guards' badges, cudgels, and fallen lanterns. Raising their lights to cut through the night, the false watchmen took up the patrol. They'd maintain the illusion that nothing was amiss, and serve as a first line of warning if some outside threat should intrude.

  Isiem went around to the waterfront side of the warehouse. Ena had forced the lock on the small office door. The dwarf eased the door open and waved Isiem and the woman in the red scarf forward, slipping ahead of them into the warehouse. None of them carried a light; either by magic or by the innate gifts of their blood, they could see well enough by the misty moon.

  Shelves and pallets filled the warehouse in towering rows. Pezzack was not a large town, and its warehouses were modest, but even so it was disorienting for Isiem to see corded bundles of salt cod stacked higher than his head, or rows of hanging hams like impossibly fat, salt-crusted bats crowded in a roost. The pungent aroma of garlic mingled with the spicy fragrance of the long, wrinkled red peppers that the Pezzacki called "rooster's beak"; under it all was the earthy odor of the cured meats that filled most of the visible space.

  "Where's their bloody secret cargo?" Ena muttered, stopping amid a cluster of hams. The dwarf pulled a small charm out from under her jerkin: a single-pointed blue crystal wrapped in silver wire and hung from a leather thong. She slipped it from around her neck and let it dangle from her fingers, watching it intently through the dusty gloom.

  After a moment, the crystal vibrated, then pulled toward a few unassuming wooden boxes stacked under a heap of grain sacks. "Magic," Ena grunted in satisfaction, putting her charm back on and tucking the crystal under her shirt. "There'll be something more than carrots and onions in those boxes, I'll wager."

  "Be ready," said the woman in the red scarf. She drew a longsword with a smooth, blued blade. Another crimson scarf wrapped its hilt, but the pommel was bare, and on it Isiem saw a sword-and-halo etched in gold. Iomedae's mark.

  "Help me with these sacks," Ena told Isiem, grabbing one end of a sizable bag.

  It must have weighed over eighty pounds, and the dwarf's short stature made moving it awkward. Isiem hoisted the other side with a grunt, helping Ena ease it to the floor. He tipped his chin at the woman who stood poised with her sword. "She could help, instead of trying to stare down this barley. She's probably stronger than either of us."

  Ena snorted. "That's what paladins do. Look noble while the rest of us do the heavy lifting." She raised her voice, directing two of the other conspirators: "Get the next sack."

  Minutes later, with the grain sacks piled on the floor, Ena pried open the top box under the paladin's watchful gaze. She brushed aside a layer of straw and sacking, then paused and stepped back slowly. "Wizard. Come here."

  Isi
em came forward. The box was packed tight with bones, all painted black. Most appeared to be the bones of large birds, although he couldn't tell whether they were from eagles, vultures, or some rarer breed. He'd never been a great student of the natural world.

  Alongside those bones were others that seemed to be the fleshless hands and arms of some small, clawed creatures. Kobolds, perhaps; Isiem judged that they were slightly too small, and the claws too developed, to belong to goblins. They, too, had been painted entirely black.

  He picked through the bones. They had been stacked in neat, careful rows, nestled together to conserve space. Gummy, necromantic preservatives stained their joints and the crevices under the hands' hooked claws.

  "What is it?" Ena asked tensely.

  "Undead of some type, I think. I've never seen ones quite like this." Isiem shrugged, stepping back. "Open the next box."

  The next box contained more black-painted bones, as did the one beneath it. The final box, however, held something different under its coat of yellow straw. Hinged glass cases, each filled with dead birds, gleamed inside.

  Isiem picked up one of the cases. It held eight birds ranging in size from crows to sparrows, and it felt strangely light in his hands. A whiff of funereal spices—frankincense, sandalwood, Osirian black resin—hinted that it, too, bore some necromantic spell. A curled copper shaving on each of the birds' eyes, and a sprinkling of salt in their feathers, told him what that magic was: a rite to stave off decay.

  More cases of dead birds filled the box. Isiem peered more closely at the one in his hands. The birds' throats looked swollen, as if they'd all swallowed eggs that had lodged in their gullets, and there seemed to be a dried, flaky residue about their nostrils and the sides of their beaks ...But even though his magic allowed him to see clearly in the dark, it was impossible to be sure through the glass.

  Curiosity pushed him to open the case, even as caution pulled him back. Isiem didn't recognize the necromancy at work here, nor could he identify the disease that had killed the birds—if what he'd seen was a disease, and not some poison or side effect of the preservative spell—but he wanted to. Pezzack had little to interest a wizard of any real skill, and less to challenge one; Isiem had spent much of the past year mired in boredom. This was a mystery, and that pleased him.