A Dance of Chaos: Book 6 of Shadowdance (20 page)

“Get back here, you idiot!” Tarlak cried, but it was too late. On the rooftops of the fine homes on either side emerged dozens of men wearing long coats and the four-pointed star. Summoning another wall of force, Tarlak blocked a second barrage of arrows. Brug, beyond reach of the shield, shrugged off the few that hit him, the thin, slender shots unable to pierce his heavy armor. Less easy to shrug off was the kick to his head from a woman who leaped from the rooftop, attacking before all the others. As his friend dropped, Tarlak put his back to Delysia’s and prepared another protective wall in case their ambushers should fire more arrows.

“This might have been a mistake,” he muttered, praying Brug would somehow survive out there alone.

“Now’s not the time to doubt yourself,” his sister said, and he heard a soft ringing, saw light shining from her hands.

Abandoning their crossbows, the members of the Sun drew their blades and leaped from the rooftops. Hooking his fingers into the necessary formations while incanting the enacting words, Tarlak surrounded the two of them with a wall of fire, the flames blazing hot and taller than a man. He thought it’d slow the attackers down, but the men and women leaped through anyway, crossing their arms over their faces and enduring the burns. Tarlak blasted the first two with bolts of lightning, and the third he gave an icicle straight through the eye. From behind him he heard another loud ringing, followed by a blast of air as his sister fought with her own holy magic.

Trusting his sister to handle her own, Tarlak bathed his hands with fire, a welcome for the next to assault him. They came in a group of three, two men and a woman, using their long coats to protect themselves from the flames. Pushing his wrists together, he unleashed a giant spray of fire, its accompanying rumble and recoil forcing the wizard to brace his legs and dig in his heels. The man in the middle had no hope, his body consumed within the blink of an eye. The other two dove sideways, one crossing into the existing wall of fire, the other curling back around just within its reaches and then lunging with weapon drawn.

Trying not to panic, Tarlak twisted to the side, electricity sparking from his fingertips. He brushed the woman’s extended wrist, releasing the power into her. For a brief moment her body locked in place, every muscle rigid, and then she collapsed, dead or unconscious, he didn’t know.

“Tar!” he heard his sister shout, and he turned to find her backpedaling toward him, her hands a blur of light, blinding and disorienting the two men chasing her.

“I got them,” Tarlak said, pulling his hand back to hurl a ball of fire. Movement from the corner of his eye made him pause. A woman sailed through the air, vaulting upside down over his wall of fire as if it were a simple matter. Tarlak froze, for though the clothes were different, he recognized that face, and those twin blades.

About time something went our way
, he thought as Zusa landed between Delysia and her attackers, but his relief was short-lived. Before his sister could issue a word of gratitude, Zusa rammed an elbow into her stomach, then whipped about to strike her temple with the butt of a dagger. With a meager whimper, she crumpled, her body turning limp.

The fire around Tarlak’s hands tripled in size.

“You lost your damn mind?” he cried, flinging two balls of flame. Zusa retreated, twisting her body like a dancer to avoid the attacks. The balls continued, detonating against one of the nearby homes, but he was too furious to care. Preparing to see if Zusa could dodge lightning as easily as she did fire, Tarlak only barely noticed another attacker leaping over his wall of flame. Whirling at the last second, Tarlak unleashed the great barrage of swirling lightning … at least, it should have been, only a ring on the man’s hand flared with a sudden red light, preventing the spell from activating. Unimpaired, the man landed before Tarlak, then leaped forward, his feet seeming to never touch the ground.

Only it wasn’t a man, Tarlak realized as he cast a desperate defense. It was an elf.

Twin lances of ice shot from his two hands, each one sharp enough to skewer Muzien where he stood. The elf was prepared for such an attack, and he leaped out of the way … both left and right, his body seeming to split into two copies. Tarlak realized it was an illusion, but his half-second of confusion was more than enough for someone as fast and deadly as Muzien. From both directions the elf closed in. It seemed he wanted Tarlak alive, for neither copy swung his blade, instead leading with elbow and knee. Defending against one or the other could mean picking wrong, so Tarlak did what he did best: improvise.

Dropping to his knees, he slammed his fists against the ground, unleashing his power in a shock wave rolling in all directions. To his left Muzien vanished as if he’d never existed, while on his right the elf let out a groan as his body halted in midair, then tumbled backward several feet. The wave continued, rattling windows and knocking loose shingles from the roofs of nearby homes. His ring of fire dissipated, and gasping for air, Tarlak rose to his feet, fingers dancing. It seemed the rest of the Sun Guild was content to let its master deal with him, and he couldn’t be happier.

“Come on,” Tarlak said, hurling a bolt of lightning as the elf raced back toward him. Light flashed with its release, and in that flash, Muzien shifted aside, just far enough to let the bolt fly harmlessly past. Two more Tarlak fired, and each time, in that briefest flash, Muzien shifted positions. Putting his hands together, Tarlak prepared to unleash a blast so gigantic no dodge would be possible. As he pooled his power, Muzien now frighteningly close, the elf shimmered, then vanished from view.

A second later, something hard cracked against the back of Tarlak’s head. He dropped to the ground, his legs suddenly too weak to keep him standing. His hat tumbled free before him, landing at the feet of Zusa, who carried an unconscious Delysia.

“A shame you weren’t better,” Zusa whispered, just before shoving him with her foot so he rolled onto his back. Muzien towered over him as the world weaved uneasily from the blow to his head. Trying, and failing, to summon one last spell, Tarlak waved an ineffectual hand toward the elf in his long dark coat. Muzien pulled a rag from one of his pockets, a bottle of fluid from the other. As two other men grabbed Tarlak’s arms and pinned him to the ground, Muzien dabbed some of the liquid onto the rag and knelt.

“Sleep now,” Muzien said. He smothered Tarlak with the rag, punching him in the gut before he could think to hold his breath. Gasping in, Tarlak was overwhelmed by a sickly sweet smell. Pressure built in his forehead, he tasted copper, and then the growing darkness left him no choice but to obey Muzien’s command as the fumes carried him away.

   12   

I
t had been a long night, but Zusa expected no relief come the dawn, only an even longer day. She vaulted over the fence of the Gemcroft mansion, stealing Karak’s power to float across its spikes and gently down to the ground on the other side. The number of guards on patrol actually impressed her. Perhaps Victor’s insistence on his ability to protect Alyssa was more than idle boasting.

Not that it’d stop her. Across the grass she ran, keeping to the shadows, having no need for doors or windows. A bare wall was her goal, and crossing her arms, she leaped into its darkness. She felt a moment’s dizziness, then emerged on the other side into a poorly lit hallway. Zusa let out a relaxed breath, glad to see no soldiers. Victor had been pulling in new men every day. Some might not recognize her, instead thinking she was an assassin. Her clothing would certainly do her no favors. She’d ditched the long coat Muzien had given her, but the four-pointed star was still sewn onto the front of her blouse.

Glancing around the corner, Zusa caught sight of the door to the master bedroom, and two men stood bored stiff at either side. Pulling back, Zusa debated the best way to go about getting inside. The last thing she wanted was a commotion, given the secrecy and urgency of her matter. Instead of knocking the two men out, she drew her daggers, put them on the ground, and then stepped around the corner with her arms raised above her head.

“I’m unarmed,” she said as the two men jolted in surprise at her arrival. “My name is Zusa, a friend of Alyssa’s, and I just wish to talk.”

The man on the left drew his sword, but the other reached out and grabbed his wrist.

“I recognize her,” he said to his fellow before turning toward Zusa. “Though that star on your chest makes me think we should send you to a cell instead of the lady’s bedroom.”

“A disguise, and nothing more,” she said, arms still raised. “Let Alyssa know I’m here.”

The first soldier pulled his hand free of his companion’s, then banged on the door, the noise obnoxiously loud. He was trying to alert other soldiers without making it seem obvious, Zusa knew. Telling herself to be patient, she gritted her teeth and waited.

“Yes?” asked Alyssa’s voice from the other side.

“A woman’s here, says her name is Zusa.”

A pause.

“Let her in.”

Zusa smiled sweetly at them both as they opened the door, and then into the master bedroom she slid, the doors promptly shutting behind her.

“Forgive the intrusion,” Zusa said. Alyssa sat before her in her bed, blankets bunched at her waist and her hair ruffled from sleep. “I know it’s late, but we have little time to act before dawn, and the executions begin. Where is Victor?”

Despite her glass eyes being in a jar on the bed table beside her, Alyssa blinked a few times and rubbed her forehead, struggling to make sense of Zusa’s words.

“Victor? Executions? What are you talking about, Zusa?”

Zusa took in a deep breath, and she forced herself to calm down as she sat at the foot of the enormous bed.

“Muzien’s decided to draw out the Watcher,” she said. “To do so, he’s captured several of his friends, and come dawn, he plans on creating another spectacle like he did in the marketplace. We have to be ready. This is our chance, the best chance we could ever hope for. Now summon your betrothed so we can prepare.”

Alyssa seemed almost embarrassed, and it baffled Zusa.

“He’s not my betrothed,” she said. “We … we married earlier today, Zusa.”

Zusa tilted her head, and she started to gesture about her before feeling foolish upon realizing Alyssa would not see the motions.

“Then where is Victor?”

“Down the hall, in his quarters.”

“It’s a strange wedding night that has the newlyweds sleeping in different beds,” Zusa said.

“I think tonight has seen stranger,” Alyssa said, sliding out of bed, walking three careful steps, and then grabbing a waiting bed robe that hung from the side of a dresser. “Do you know exactly what his plans are?” she asked as she put on the robe.

“An excellent question,” said a man’s voice from the corner, and both turned toward the source. Haern stood beside an opened window, a window Zusa had long been displeased with for the exact reason before her. There should have been guards positioned beneath … but of course, it was stupid to think the Watcher would not have been able to handle them.

“I pray you didn’t kill anyone to enter through there, Watcher,” Zusa said, purposefully using his name to ensure Alyssa knew the identity of the stranger invading her bedroom.

“They’ll wake,” Haern said. “Now what is the meaning of this?”

He tossed a rolled-up letter onto the bed, the letter she’d written and left hanging from the door of the Eschaton Tower earlier that night.
They are gone
, it read.
Come to Alyssa’s for answers
.

“We’ve … the Sun Guild has captured three fellow members of your mercenaries,” Zusa said. “It will be a simple exchange, your life for theirs. Muzien will cry it out to the entire city to ensure you know, then begin killing them one by one until you show.”

Haern’s face, already clothed in shadow by that magical hood of his, somehow seemed to grow darker.

“Where?” he asked, his voice nearly a growl.

Before Zusa could answer, Alyssa interrupted, putting a hand on Zusa’s shoulder to gain her attention.

“Not yet,” she said. “Victor should be here for this.”