The Return of Nightfall Read online

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  Acknowledgements

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Raves for Nightfall’s Return!

  “Nightfall, the mythical assassin featured in The Legend of Nightfall is back and badder than ever! In the vein of R. A. Salvatore’s dark elf Drizzt Do’Urden and Michael Moorcock’s albino sorcerer Elric of Melni boné, Reichert’s Nightfall is arguably the most complex and thoroughly entertaining antihero to come along in decades, a master of disguise who alters personas as easily as changing clothes. This adventure—which includes evil sorcerers, rowdy pirates, scheming politicians, and enough nonstop action to satisfy the most zealous swashbuckler fanatic—is his most exciting yet, and hopefully not his last.”

  —The Editors of Barnes and Noble

  “The former thief and master of disguise makes his long-awaited return in this absorbing, fast-paced high fantasy. Reichert’s well-conceived and well-executed world, including its salty seafaring side, will leave fans hoping they won’t have to wait so long for a third Nightfall book.”—Publishers Weekly

  “Finally, a new Nightfall story! This is a great story. There’s adventure on land and sea, vivid characters, sarcastic humor and a charmingly befuddled but deadly hero. The Return of Nightfall is a welcome homecoming.”—Starlog

  THE

  RETURN

  OF

  NIGHTFALL

  Be sure to read these other

  extraordinary DAW Fantasy Novels by

  MICKEY ZUCKER REICHERT

  FLIGHTLESS FALCON

  THE LEGEND OF NIGHTFALL

  THE RETURN OF NIGHTFALL

  SPIRIT FOX

  (with Jennifer Wingert)

  The Books of Barakhai:

  THE BEASTS OF BARAKHAI

  THE LOST DRAGONS OF BARAKHAI

  The Renshai Trilogy:

  THE LAST OF THE RENSHAI

  THE WESTERN WIZARD

  CHILD OF THUNDER

  The Renshai Chronicles:

  BEYOND RAGNAROK

  PRINCE OF DEMONS

  THE CHILDREN OF WRATH

  The Bifrost Guardians Omnibus Editions

  Volume I:

  GODSLAYER

  SHADOW CLIMBER

  DRAGONRANK MASTER

  Volume II:

  SHADOW’S REALM

  BY CHAOS CURSED

  Copyright © 2004 by Miriam S. Zucker.

  All rights reserved.

  DAW Books Collectors No. 1303.

  DAW Books are distributed by the Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

  All characters and events in this book are fictitious.

  All resemblance to persons living or dead is coincidental.

  The scanning, uploading and distribution of this book via the Internet or any other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal, and punishable by law. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions, and do not participate in or encourage the electronic piracy of copyrighted materials. Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated.

  Chapter 1 of this novel previously appeared in a different form as the short story, “Nightfall’s Promise,” in DAW 30th ANNIVERSARY FANTASY, Edited by Elizabeth R. Wollheim and Sheila E. Gilbert, copyright © 2002.

  First Paperback Printing, September 2005

  DAW TRADEMARK REGISTERED

  U.S. PAT. OFF. AND FOREIGN COUNTRIES

  —MARCA REGISTRADA

  HECHO EN U.S.A.

  S.A.

  eISBN : 978-1-101-15754-1

  http://us.penguingroup.com

  To Jody Lee,

  friend, artist, and loving mother—

  from her biggest fan.

  Acknowledgments

  I would like to thank the following people:

  Sheila Gilbert, Mark Moore, Sandra Zucker,

  Jonathan Matson, Tim Larson, Jackie, Koby, and Carly.

  Also, to all the persistent fans of Nightfall for

  demanding a sequel—sorry it took me eleven years

  to get the message.

  The Legend of Nightfall: A Nursery Rhyme

  A demon wakens with the night,

  Reviling sun and all things bright.

  Evil’s friend and virtue’s foe—

  Darkness comes where Nightfall goes.

  Eyes darker than the midnight shade;

  Teeth sharper than the headsman’s blade.

  When he smiles, a cold wind blows—

  Darkness comes where Nightfall goes.

  When shadows fall and sunlight breaks,

  What Nightfall touches, Nightfall takes.

  Lives and silver, maids in bows—

  Darkness comes where Nightfall goes.

  A demon cruel; a monster stark,

  Grim moonlight, coldness, deepest dark.

  Nightmares come to those who doze

  In darkness where old Nightfall goes.

  Nightfall laughs, and death’s ax falls.

  Hell opens wide and swallows all.

  He rules the depths where no light shows—

  Darkness comes where Nightfall goes.

  Lock up your children after dark,

  Lest Nightfall find an easy mark.

  For safety ends at twilight’s close—

  And darkness comes where Nightfall goes.

  Razor claws and fiery eyes;

  Leathern wings to cleave the skies.

  His soul within stark midnight froze—

  Darkness comes where Nightfall goes.

  Those who brave the night will find

  Horror, dread, and demon kind.

  He slays them all and rends their souls—

  Darkness comes where Nightfall goes.

  Birthed within the black abyss,

  His silent gift a deadly kiss.

  Gone before the rooster crows—

  Darkness comes where Nightfall goes.

  Counting years like grains of sand.

  Countless fall beneath his hand.

  Time, his minion; night, his clothes—

  Darkness comes where Nightfall goes.

  Where Nightfall walks, all virtue dies.

  He weaves a trail of pain and lies.

  On mankind heaps his vilest woes—

  Darkness comes where Nightfall goes.

  Wolves and bats and beasts of night,

  Spirits black that flee the light,

  Cringed in fear when he arose—

  Darkness comes where Nightfall goes.

  He feeds on elders and children,

  On soldiers, kings, and beggarmen.

  He never stops and never slows—

  Darkness comes where Nightfall goes.

  The Evil One, the demon blight

  Who hides in day and stalks the night.

  He steals the stars and drags them low—

  Darkness comes where Nightfall goes.

  Alternative verses:

  Three kings and their armies rode

  To hunt the demon in the cold;

  But where they’ve gone, no mortal knows—

  Darkness comes
where Nightfall goes.

  A dragon laughed at Nightfall’s fame,

  Rained curses on the demon’s name;

  The dragon’s bones now lie in rows—

  Darkness comes where Nightfall goes.

  A wizard hoped to slay the beast.

  He conjured up a poisoned feast.

  The demon fed him to the crows—

  Darkness comes where Nightfall goes.

  A gambler bet the tales were lies

  And scorned the wisdom of the wise.

  The odds were not the ones he chose—

  Darkness comes where Nightfall goes.

  Six princes fought him in the night.

  Their fortress of unequaled might

  ’Twas gone before the sun arose—

  Darkness comes where Nightfall goes.

  The Evil One, the demon blight

  Who hides in day and stalks the night.

  He steals the stars and drags them low—

  Darkness comes where Nightfall goes.

  Prologue

  NIGHTFALL AWAKENED to the first rays of sunlight trickling through the open window of his room in Alyndar Castle. As always, he woke without stiffening, without changing the pattern of his breathing, without providing any hint to anyone who might be watching that the level of his alertness had changed. He assessed the status of his injuries from weeks-long habit; and, to his delight, found nothing amiss. For the first time since he had fallen the equivalent of nine stories, locked in battle with a flying sorcerer, nothing hurt.

  Nightfall opened his eyes. He knew every detail of the room by heart, secure in the knowledge that, if anything had changed in the night, he would immediately be aware of it. He lay on a real bed, its ticking softened by thick, fuzzy blankets fit for royalty. His furniture consisted of a massive wardrobe, currently containing exactly two changes of clothing and sparse toiletries. An empty chest took up most of the space at the end of the bed, and a chamber pot sat in the corner.

  Nightfall ran a hand through tangled mahogany-brown hair that no longer was covered in grime, dust, and dyes. Once a master of disguise living regularly as seven different men, and occasionally as several others, he had spent months adjusting to his given name, Sudian, and the one appearance he had not used since childhood: his own. Doing so obviated the need for him to assume postures that made his slightly less than average height seem taller or shorter, his slender and sinewy frame seem muscular, lame, or bulky; but it also left him feeling naked and vulnerable. Clean-shaven, Sudian had no way to hide his strong chin and cheekbones, his fair skin; and no shadowing or squints masked eyes the dense, dark indigo of blackened steel.

  Now free of splints, bandages, and the ache of healing bones and muscles, Nightfall felt driven by the sudden urge to move. His life usually kept him in constant motion, in body and mind. He felt withered by the healing and resting, in desperate need of a reckless run or climb. His gaze went naturally to the window, and memory caught him in a sudden and frantic crush. Once again, he felt himself surging through the air as he attacked Chancellor Gilleran in a blood-maddened frenzy, his hands scrabbling for the sorcerer’s throat. Using magic, Gilleran flew, dragging Nightfall with him, through the seventh-story tower window. The sorcerer’s fingernails raked Nightfall’s face in crooked lines of fiery pain. Gilleran kicked and flailed to free himself, soaring ever higher to assure that when Nightfall’s grip failed, the fall would kill him.

  Now, as then, Nightfall hid fear behind desperation and will. His mind was inescapably drawn back to that fateful encounter, and his vision gave him only whirling pictures of treetops, guards leaning from the tower windows, and the courtyard far below them. Gilleran’s struggles, and his own previous blood loss, impaired his coordination and threatened his hold on the sorcerer. Given the choice of dying alone or taking the chancellor with him, Nightfall chose the latter. He tapped the talent that had come to him at birth, driving his weight upward, beyond Gilleran’s ability to support. And both of them had plummeted.

  It was a plunge Nightfall could never forget, seconds of utter panic that passed like an hour of shrieking agony. Gilleran’s screams had shattered his hearing, and the struggle to break free of Nightfall’s hold became lashing, pounding, and desperate. In the final moments, Nightfall had abruptly lowered his weight, propelling his body to feather-lightness with a thought. He could not reverse the deadly momentum, but it gave him the top position over Gilleran and allowed him to grab a tree limb to slow his descent. Ultimately, the landing killed Gilleran and left Nightfall with a shattered left hand, a dislocated shoulder, a badly bitten thumb, several broken ribs, and deeply unconscious.

  He considered himself lucky to have survived at all.

  Now, Nightfall pushed aside the detailed pictures his mind still so easily conjured. His life had always depended upon quickness in thought and action, deadly accurate skill, and split-second timing. He could not afford to develop a fear of anything. Hesitation would spell his doom, no matter how normal that delay or unwillingness might seem to the rest of the world. He had no time to spare for second thoughts when his only escape lay beyond a second-, or seventh-, or millionth-story window.

  A knock on the door dragged Nightfall fully back to the present. He flipped open the wardrobe and grabbed a set of clean clothing: a shirt, tunic, and breeks in royal Alyndarian purple and silver. Noble’s clothes.

  “Who is it?” he called, while he swiftly pulled off his nightshirt and donned the proper garb.

  The muffled male voice was unintelligible.

  Nightfall smoothed the cold fabric of his silks, shook back his hair, and opened the door to a young male guard with a sword at his belt, dressed in similar colors over mail.

  Apparently expecting more conversation shouted through the door, the guard retreated a step, then bowed. “My lord, King Edward Nargol would like to know if you’re well enough to join him in court today.”

  King Edward. The title still sounded bizarre to Nightfall. King Edward. He wondered if he could ever see more to the eighteen-year-old monarch of Alyndar than the impetuous, idealistic prince he had escorted around most of the world. Using Chancellor Gilleran’s magical “oath-bond,” King Rikard had bound the deadliest assassin in the four kingdoms to his dangerously naive younger son. Nightfall had been charged with the task of keeping Edward alive and getting him landed within a rapidly dwindling time period, all without the prince knowing his mission or his identity beyond that of the dutiful squire, Sudian. If Nightfall failed at any part, the magic assured Gilleran would take Nightfall’s soul and, with it, his natal weight-shifting talent.

  And failure seemed a certainty. No matter what approach Nightfall had taken, Edward’s raw and innocent zeal mangled his best-laid schemes and plans. In the end, Gilleran had undone himself by murdering the elder prince and the king, thereby granting the crown to Edward, landing him through inheritance. Had Nightfall not interfered, Gilleran would have slaughtered Edward as well and would now rule both Alyndar and Nightfall’s soul.

  Nightfall lowered his head. He would rather chew off his own fingertips than sit through a morning of highborns’ griping. “Please inform His Majesty pain kept me awake most of the night.” It was a lie. Nightfall could not remember a better sleep. “I’m still not quite ready for court.”

  “Yes, my lord.” The guard bowed again, turned, and retreated down the hallway.

  Nightfall closed the door, sighing as he did. The excuse would not hold up much longer. Two weeks had passed since the month-long grieving period for King Rikard and Crown Prince Leyne had ended, and the royal healers now proclaimed Nightfall fit. Twice, he had attempted to sit upon the chancellor’s seat at Edward’s side and perform his promised duty, but even dawdling had not rescued him from the tedium. Both times, he had arrived late enough to avoid all the fussy preparations, but he still had to face the proceedings. The first time, he fell asleep amid the ramblings of some knight about honor and family. Nightfall had blamed the lapse on pain medication, thoug
h he had taken none in days. The second time, he found his mind wandering and his body in perpetual, fidgeting motion.

  Hoping to fulfill another need, Nightfall returned to the window and looked down the three stories into the inner courtyard. The sun had barely crested the horizon, and no one yet tarried or frolicked among the statues, flowers, and benches. Most had just awakened, and the autumn morning chill would keep them away at least until the approach of midday. Certain he had no audience, Nightfall sprang to the window ledge, then swung down onto the stonework of the tower wall. From habit, he easily found finger-and toeholds in the mortar.

  A breeze caressed him, bringing with it the memory of wind surging around him as he tumbled helplessly toward the ground, locked with Gilleran. He banished the image fiercely. Fear would not have him. Instead, he concentrated on the feel of the cold stone against his hands, feet, and cheek, finding chinks from long habit, and shinnying down the side as if born to the process. This time, he did not even need to rely on his natal talent. Custom and practice alone allowed him a perfect downward climb.

  The moment his feet touched ground, Nightfall shinnied back up, dodging the windows in the first and second floors. It would not do for the castle regulars and help to see the king’s adviser scurrying up and down walls like a spider. Soon, his stomach unclenched and his muscles loosened, falling into the familiarity of their task. The memories of his fall would stay with him, but they could no longer hurt him. One more climb and he would purge the feeling of desperation from his system, would escape the natural inclination to avoid any situation that might remind him of his latest brush with mortality.