Authors: Kelly McCullough
Broken Blade (27 page)
Reflex or chance guided me into the guard’s shins, and he went down in a heap. I didn’t bother to get up, just flipped my sword from overhand to under and sank it deep in his side, twisting and levering in search of something vital. Somewhere in there the man stopped moving, Maylien stopped yelling, and her familiar stopped snarling. For a few brief seconds, all was bliss and silence, and I had leisure to figure out that the cage must have come apart when I hit it, freeing the familiar to save my life.
Then came the applause.
“Very nicely done, Aral. Oh, very nice. If you’d managed it even a few minutes earlier, you’d be out the door and gone by now.”
It was Devin’s voice.
Fuck.
I rolled over onto my back, bringing my sword up defensively. It wasn’t much of a shield, but it was all I had.
“There’s no need to be so dramatic,” he said. “If I’d wanted to kill you, I wouldn’t have spoken. I’d just have pulled the trigger.”
Devin stood in the doorway holding a small crossbow, its quarrel aimed directly at my left eye. I had no doubt that a moment before it had been pointing at the spot where my spine connected to my skull. I also had no doubt that the dark smear of stuff on the head would kill me in a matter of minutes, whether it hit a vital spot or not. I couldn’t tell what the poison was from here, but none of the options made me want to try my luck.
“Maylien,” said Devin. “Tell your pet to land next to Aral, or I will be forced to kill it and, tragically, you.”
Maylien didn’t say a word, but the gray and black cloud of fury that had been hovering a few feet from Devin and hissing angrily, turned in the air and came to land beside me. It wasn’t until then that I finally got a good look at it.
Miniature gryphon, or gryphinx. Which meant that Maylien had spent those missing years with the Rovers, a seminomadic order of mages that spent much of their time clearing the roads and hunting bandits and highwaymen. Maylien’s partnering of a gryphinx meant she’d taken mage orders with them, or at least started along that path, and that spoke well of her. The Rovers had always had good relations with Namara’s priesthood and shared many of the same values.
“There’s a nice pet,” said Devin. “That wasn’t so hard, was it?”
The little gryphinx hissed and mantled at that, which pretty much mirrored my feelings.
“Gently, Bontrang,” said Maylien, and I recognized in his name the word she’d cried out earlier.
Bontrang let out another angry squall, then dropped back onto his haunches and flicked his tail around to cover his front feet. He
looked
calm that way, but I could hear the very faint scraping as he repeatedly flexed and released his talons under the tail. The gryphinx was about the size of a large house cat, with the head, wings, and front legs of a hawk and the body and coloring of a gray tabby.
looked
calm that way, but I could hear the very faint scraping as he repeatedly flexed and released his talons under the tail. The gryphinx was about the size of a large house cat, with the head, wings, and front legs of a hawk and the body and coloring of a gray tabby.
“Very good,” said Devin. “Aral, I’m going to ask you to stay right where you are. Flat on your back in the middle of the room is about as safe as I can make you this side of dead. Triss, please don’t try anything clever. I don’t want to have to kill Aral, but I will if you force me to it. So I’d like you in plain sight.”
Triss slid out from under me, assuming his dragon form as he did so. “How’s this?” His voice burned with anger.
“Perfect. That puts everyone where I want them. Now we’re going to have a little talk.”
“Don’t you want to move me over with the others?” asked Maylien. “It’s going to be hard to keep an eye on me way over here.”
“Not at all. I like you in chains. If anything, I’d prefer to lock Aral up next to you.
That
would simplify things, but I can’t think of a safe way to arrange it at the moment, so we’ll just leave him there. Besides, with your pet sitting next to Aral like that, I’ve got all the leverage over you that I need.”
That
would simplify things, but I can’t think of a safe way to arrange it at the moment, so we’ll just leave him there. Besides, with your pet sitting next to Aral like that, I’ve got all the leverage over you that I need.”
“Bontrang’s not a pet,” snapped Maylien. “He’s my familiar, and a damned good one.”
“Call him whatever you wish, child. He’s still a glorified house cat. Now, do shut up, or I’ll have to shoot him. The adults have things we need to discus.”
Maylien shut up though I could read rage in the angle of her chin and the tension in her neck and shoulders. I felt the same way but made a conscious effort not to show it.
“Aren’t you going to ask me to throw my sword aside?” I asked, keeping my voice casual.
“No, I think you’ll feel safer with a weapon in hand, and that’ll make you easier to deal with, more rational. It also keeps you from getting any ridiculous ideas like throwing it at me. That’s a reasonable trade-off for the risk. I take it from your arrival here that you’ve chosen not to accept the deal I offered you at Marchon House?”
I nodded and tried not to look over Devin’s shoulder into the hallway. I wanted the Crown Guard to have one clean shot at his back when they finally got here.
“Pity that. You’d be a real asset for the new Order of the Assassin Mage. It would make our path much easier if I could just get you to come in with the rest of us.” Possibly in response to some unintentional cue from me, Devin stepped deeper into the room then, moving to the side so that he had a wall at his back. “Hell, you wouldn’t even have to participate in any of our funding activities if you didn’t want to.”
“Contract murder, you mean?” I asked. “Not interested.”
Triss hissed his agreement.
“I prefer ‘paid assassination’ if it’s all the same to you.” Devin moved again, stepping to the side and resting a hip on the table where his henchman’s hand still lay beside the sword I’d used to chop it off—the crossbow never wavered from its aim at my left eye. “But that’s not all we do. We hire out for a lot of freelance work these days. Some not so different from your jack work here in Tien. But you wouldn’t have to play that game.
“After our last encounter, I checked in with the ruling council, and we’ve agreed you’re an important enough catch to offer you a new deal. You and Triss can join us in an advisory capacity, teaching the next generation the skills that you know so well. You wouldn’t be allowed a vote on the council, of course, but your hands would be completely free of blood.”
“This council you keep mentioning. Who are we talking about?” And where the hell were the Crown Guard? Had they missed Devin’s arrival?
“Sorry, but until you’re on the inside, you don’t need to know any of the involved names but mine. For that matter, if you didn’t already know about me, we wouldn’t give you that much.” Then he shook his head sadly. “You’re not going to see reason, are you?”
“Reason? Really? It’s not like you’re asking me to train a new generation of Blades. Namara’s dead. No, you want me to help you create an army of assassins unbound by any ethical restriction. An order of murderers that would answer to no one but itself in the shape of this council of yours. Then you tell me that if I do this, I won’t have blood on my hands? Secondhand blood is still blood.”
“You’re sure you won’t reconsider? No, I can see that you won’t. I guess—”
Devin’s voice cut off abruptly as he spun in place and fired the crossbow at an angle back through the door. There was a choked gurgling noise in response—the distinctive sound of someone taking a quarrel in the throat.
The Crown Guard had arrived. Now I just had to survive long enough to get Maylien free and make a break for it.
15
Devin
vanished into a pool of shadow. As the first Crown Guards burst through the doorway, the shadow licked out, and the guard lost his head. I was already moving by then, rolling back up onto my shoulders, then flipping myself forward onto my feet.
vanished into a pool of shadow. As the first Crown Guards burst through the doorway, the shadow licked out, and the guard lost his head. I was already moving by then, rolling back up onto my shoulders, then flipping myself forward onto my feet.
“Catch!” The shadow shifted again, and the sword I’d left embedded in the table came spinning my way. The enemy of my enemy, and all that.
I put out my right hand and the hilt slapped into it, a perfect toss on Devin’s part. I lunged toward Maylien as two more Crown Guards died in the doorway. Before I could do anything about the chains that held her, the back wall of the room exploded inward, propelled by magic. A dozen more Crown Guards charged in through the choking cloud of wood and plaster dust.
The nearest tried to skewer me with her woldo, a pole-mounted short sword, and I had to turn away from Maylien to parry the blow. Dust began to fill my nose and throat, and I coughed violently but kept moving. Before the guard could recover from her thrust, I stepped in and opened her throat with a backhanded cut.
As I fended off another attack, I croaked back over my shoulder to Maylien, “Hang on, I’ll get you loose in a second.”
“Screw that,” said Maylien, between her own coughs. “I’ll get myself loose. You deal with the Crown Guards. Bontrang!”
The little gryphinx shot past my head as I slid between two of the guards, killing one with a thrust up and under the ribs and breaking the knee of the other with a spinning back kick. Triss tore out that one’s throat when my shadow fell across him. As I moved past the dead guard, an arrow passed just behind my head. I turned to look for the archer, but Devin’s shadow abruptly hid him from sight, and I stopped worrying about him.
I killed three more guards in quick succession and had moved to go after a fourth when Triss’s voice suddenly yelled “Down!” and I dropped to the floor. All the hair along the back of my body stood on end as a sheet of magelightning sizzled through the place I had just been. I rolled sharply to my left, just dodging a thrown axe, then spun myself back up onto my feet in time to bat another axe away with my sword.
Then the captain of the Elite was on me, a short axe in each hand, and I found myself backing up fast as he pressed me. The next few seconds passed in a blur as we exchanged a dozen blows and counters at a pace I hadn’t had to sustain in years. He was better than I, at least as I was now, and I couldn’t touch him. I kept him from scoring on me, but only barely and with the constant worry that his stone dog might take me from behind at any moment.
Then Triss came to my rescue, enfolding me in shadow all in an instant and surrendering me his senses. The captain very nearly had me in the moment of transition before I’d fully submerged Triss’s consciousness in my own. The tip of his left axe tore away a huge strip of my shirt between armpit and waist, while the back of its head slid bruisingly along my ribs.
I countered with a thrust straight toward the captain’s groin. He leaped backward just in time, wisely moving away from the sword he couldn’t see within the moving shadow he could. I followed, pressing him back and back again. Triss’s presence gave me other advantages beyond the invisible attack, including the ability to “see” all around me in three dimensions through his unvision.
It revealed why the stone dog hadn’t taken my life earlier. The dog and a half dozen Crown Guards were engaged with the shadow that hid Devin—they had not been prepared to meet two Blades. The unvision also showed me Maylien and Bontrang working together to free her by repeatedly directing some sort of low-magic force burst against the locks of her shackles. Slow work that. Much slower than a pick if you didn’t want to accidentally rip your hand off. Most importantly, my unvision spied subtle movement in the hall beyond the door where the first guards had entered. More archers probably.
“Devin! Ware the door, we’ve company coming!” For a moment it almost felt like old times, and I had to remind myself we were at best temporary allies.
“Busy here! Deal with it!”
But four more guards had also arrived from the other direction, backing up their captain and putting me once more on the defensive. This group all had woldos, and they were using the sword-spears to blindly thrust again and again into my lacuna of shadow. Easy enough to avoid on an individual basis, but much harder coming from multiple directions and with the captain and his axes and possible spells to keep an eye on as well. That was the situation when the first arrow sank into the floor at my heels.
The archers couldn’t go for a straight shot with the captain and his spear-wielders in the line of fire but they
could
plink away in the general vicinity of my feet and hope they got lucky. I was just trying to decide if I could afford to turn and rush the archers when Maylien let loose on them with a truly hellacious burst of magefire.
could
plink away in the general vicinity of my feet and hope they got lucky. I was just trying to decide if I could afford to turn and rush the archers when Maylien let loose on them with a truly hellacious burst of magefire.
At which point, the world came apart. The magefire ignited the cloud of dust still hanging in the air in a massive explosion. The blast took out what was left of the wall between the audience chamber and the hallway, at which point the ceiling fell in.
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