Ebudae (43 page)

Ebudae punched her in the face, knocking the
priestess to the ground. “Don’t. Touch. Me.” Each word was bitten
at the end.

Appana scrambled to her feet with a
strangled scream of rage. She brought her staff to bear in Ebudae’s
face and it became brighter as she pulled power into it.

“Appana!” Sir Imbra came forward and grabbed
the priestess by the waist. “This is
not
acceptable.”

Ebudae didn’t want to fight the priestess.
The woman was a truly good person and Ebudae wasn’t willing to
destroy good things in the world no matter how obnoxious they might
be.

“Enough!” All eyes turned to the
weaponmaster. “We have a mission to accomplish. Personal feelings
and who-has-what mysterious powers can be sorted out afterwards.”
He handed the adventuring sword back to Pelya. “I don’t know what
this sword is, but you wield it well. Right now, I need you to
focus on what’s ahead of us. Is that clear?”

Pelya took the sword. “Yes, Commander. I’m
ready.” She was still breathing heavily, but stood tall.

“Good. Let’s get going.”

Appana continued to glare at Ebudae, who
glared back. Sir Imbra dragged the priestess ahead through the
doors, leaving everyone else to follow up the stairs.

As they entered the large, open basement,
they came across five more dead bodies lying in awkward positions
over pools of blood. Two were human wizards while the other three
were swordsmen. “It was smart of them to protect the wizards,” Sir
Imbra said. “Useless against
me
, but still smart.”

“They’re lucky you killed them,” the
weaponmaster said as he spat on one of the wizards. “In the Guard
we have special ways of dealing with wizards who use sticky fire.”
He kicked the other.

“That was despicable,” Sir Imbra agreed. He
nodded at Ebudae. “Nicely handled, Milady. Few people ever keep
their wits about them long enough to handle sticky fire and fewer
still have the power to counter it.”

Appana growled, but kept her tongue. Sir
Imbra had a hand on her back, guiding her forward. It was too much
for Ebudae. “You obviously have a problem with me, but you seem to
be missing the fact that I don’t
care
what you think.”

“We do
not
have time for this!” the
commander yelled. He stomped forward angrily, leaving them to
follow or not. There were passages to other areas of the basement,
but he headed towards wide stairs on the other side that led to a
large wooden door. Appana and Ebudae set aside their growing
dislike once more and followed him along with everyone else. “Have
I mentioned that I hate stairs?” the weaponmaster mumbled as he
began climbing.

“Not recently,” Frath replied. At the top of
the stairs, the weaponmaster raised his foot and kicked the door
near the handle. It didn’t budge. Frath came up to him and pushed
on the lever. It obediently opened, swinging outward. “We’re
opening doors this way now.”

The weaponmaster glared at him as he went
through. They followed him into a long marble hallway that had a
yellow carpet with flowers down its length. To the left was an
intersection of halls and beyond that, a staircase going up. To the
right was a set of ornate double doors guarded by seven swordsmen.
Thankfully, they seemed to have run out of wizards.

They looked surprised by the appearance of
City Guardsmen, a Knight and Priestess of Reanna and two young
women. Perhaps they didn’t think anyone would survive wizards,
swordsmen and sticky fire and that fact made them nervous.

“Stand back! These are mine!” Commander
Coodmur ran at the swordsmen with his hands empty.

Sir Imbra stayed where he was. “All of
them?”

“I think so,” Frath said in
disappointment.

“That hardly seems fair.” The knight looked
sad.

“I know, right?”

Master Thanzin’s men looked confused by the
fact that a single man was attacking them. It was as though they
didn’t know whether to take it seriously. A few didn’t even have
their swords drawn.

Commander Gilron Coodmur, Weaponmaster of
the Dralin City Guard was believed to be the most dangerous man in
the world by everyone who had trained under him and been knocked to
the ground over and over again. It didn’t
look
like the old,
grey-haired man should be dangerous, but his students knew the
truth of it.

The officer foolishly standing in front of
everyone else learned it to be true as well. He had his sword out
and feebly attempted a swing at what he thought was a suicidal man.
Commander Coodmur jumped and twisted in midair. The sword passed
harmlessly underneath him as he caught the man’s head in both his
hands. A simple, but powerful twist broke the officer’s neck.

The weaponmaster landed on the ground behind
him and used his momentum to swing the officer around into another,
knocking him down. The next person swung a sword only to have his
knee broken by a well-placed foot. As he fell to the ground
screaming in pain, the commander took his sword away and flung it
through the neck of another man a few feet away.

He then tumbled beneath another sword and
broke the neck of a man who wasn’t expecting to have to fight yet.
A sword whistled above the weaponmaster’s head. He took it away
from the fool and gutted another swordsman that attempted to kill
him. Then he spun and killed the fool with his own sword. The
weaponmaster looked at the blooded steel. “This is a decent sword.
Nicely balanced. I approve.” To show how much he approved, the
weaponmaster killed the man who tried to charge him from behind. It
only took a graceful sidestep and a quick slash to the neck as the
man barreled past.

It only left the man with the broken knee.
He was on the ground in fetal position, sobbing.

“Show him mercy,” Priestess Appana
insisted.

“Good idea!” The commander drew his own
sword and brought it down to sever the man’s head with a two-handed
blow. The priestess gasped in shock.

“Mercy is the name of his sword,” Frath
pointed out too late. “It’s . . . well, it’s an ironic name for a
sword.”

“I don’t like any of this.” Appana was
clearly miserable. “I don’t like it at all.”

Sir Imbra put an arm around her shoulders
protectively. She buried her face in his chest as though it would
make the death go away.

None of it fazed Frath. He walked to where
the commander was cleaning Mercy on the tunic of a dead man.
“Showoff.”

“Hmm?” The weaponmaster looked innocent as
an angel despite being covered in blood from head to toe.

Ebudae looked at Pelya who was standing next
to her. She was pale, whether from the sight of the bodies or from
having killed someone, Ebudae didn’t know. She took her friend’s
hand and was rewarded with a weak smile.

Sir Imbra led Appana past the weaponmaster.
“I don’t like the way you handled that,” he told the man. “It was
poorly done.”

“You don’t get to judge me.” The commander
showed no guilt or remorse.

“I don’t like the way everyone’s treating
each other!” Pelya blurted out. There were tears in her eyes and
everyone turned their attention to her. “I don’t like killing and I
don’t like it when my favorite people don’t get along.”

The doors opened. “Is it clear? Holy! . . .
What the? . . .” Ebudae recognized the speaker as Master Thanzin.
He was staring at the bodies of his men and at the quarreling
intruders.

Ebudae had certain spells compartmentalized
in her mind. They were ones she considered the most useful in any
general situation. One was a spell that seized up all the muscles
in a person’s body, preventing them from moving. She cast it at him
before he was done stuttering.

Pelya had to catch Ebudae as she became
dizzy. Once again, she had reached the limits of her magic. It took
a moment, but she shook it off.

Appana was in front of her suddenly and
Ebudae took a step back. “Hold still for a moment,” the priestess
said. “My behavior has been unacceptable and I apologize.” Ebudae
held still as ordered and accepted the soft, healing power that
came from the woman’s cool fingertips. “There. That will help.”

It did help. Ebudae felt much better. “Thank
you. My behavior was unacceptable as well.” She didn’t think so,
but wanted Pelya to be happy.

The men had gone into the room. Frath stood
next to Master Thanzin and knocked on his head like it was a door.
“I hope you can hear me in there, because I want you to know that
I’m very angry at you for threatening my daughters.”

The man’s only reply was to visibly wet
himself.

Ebudae held onto Pelya’s arm and they
followed Appana into the room. Bookshelves lined the office they
walked into. Where there wasn’t a bookshelf, there were expensive
paintings or tapestries. The carpet was rich and all the furniture
was the finest quality, especially the enormous hardwood desk in
the center.

The word ‘daughters’ kept running back and
forth in Ebudae’s mind, but Pelya asked the question first. “Daddy,
what did you mean by daughters?”

He shrugged. “Ebudae has been like a
daughter to me and she doesn’t seem to have any other family to
rely on. Do you mind if I call her that?”

Both girls answered by crashing into his
chest at full hug. He held them tight and squeezed them
breathless.

“I think we have what we need,” Commander
Coodmur told everyone. He stood next to large stacks of logbooks.
There was a large fire in the fireplace, but it only had logs. “It
seems they didn’t expect us to get this far.”

“That was silly of them.” Sir Imbra smacked
him on the shoulder in a friendly gesture.

“I know, right?” They seemed to have let go
of their irritation with each other or at least set it aside so
they could complete the mission. The weaponmaster began flipping
through the books.

Ebudae and Pelya went to sit down on a couch
away from the fireplace. Sir Imbra and Frath went to make certain
there was no one around to cause problems while Appana followed
them to provide support. If they ran across any servants or if
Master Thanzin’s swordsmen surrendered, they would have them stay
in rooms to be dealt with later. It was unlikely anyone would pose
real problems.

Pelya looked miserable. Ebudae wasn’t sure
what to say to her, so she patted her lap. Pelya immediately laid
her head on it and undid her braid. Ebudae ran fingers through the
hair and discovered that a good bit of blood had splattered in it.
Her fingers became red and sticky with it, but she didn’t stop,
especially when her friend buried her face and began sobbing
quietly. It was morbid, but Ebudae had always liked the macabre. A
short while later, Pelya was asleep.

Ebudae wasn’t sure what happened after that
because she also fell asleep. Even when soldiers began coming in
and out to collect the evidence, both girls remained deep asleep.
It helped that Frath and Gilron watched over them, shushing anyone
who made the slightest noise.

Chapter
29

Frath entered Distra’s church the next
night. The shadows danced sadly in the violet candlelight as they
usually did. He looked for the stranger, and saw the disturbance in
the shadows near the front left.

The statue raised its head, showing purple
eyes from behind the cowl. Ethereal words slithered throughout the
church. The shadows reached out to touch them lovingly. “Tell me of
your adventure.” The eyes faded and the head bowed.

He walked up the aisle and sat on the same
pew as the man. Frath tossed the food he had brought onto the bench
next to him. “In case you’re hungry.”

The man looked up. His eyes had lost much of
the insanity. “Thanks.” The voice was ragged as though he hadn’t
had anything to drink in years.

“There’s a wineskin in there too. You sound
thirsty.”

He tried to pull on the rope tying it, but
his fingers were at odd angles and didn’t work right. Wordlessly
Frath moved closer to untie the bag. The man moved away and put a
hand on the hilt of the sword. Frath swore it hadn’t been there
earlier.

“I’m not going to hurt you. I worked too
hard to save your broken . . .” He let it go. “You need a healer. I
know a good one.”

“No,” he croaked. His broken hands gripped
the neck of the wineskin after Frath pulled out the stopper. He
took a slow drink.

Frath sat back and looked at the statue.
Distra liked to hear him talk about the city. Mostly she liked
hearing about the people he met. The ones that suffered were her
favorite. Oddly enough, she didn’t like death unless it was related
to a survivor’s sorrow.

He didn’t know where to start. Distra likely
knew much of it. She had a direct connection to his mind and saw
many of the things he saw. In addition, she knew what the shadows
knew and could see through the eyes of crows. But she was a goddess
and had other things to do than stay in his head all the time, a
fact he was grateful for.

“Pelya and Ebudae made some new friends.” He
debated where to go from there. “They didn’t last very long. All
but one is dead and that one was tortured. I’m not sure if that
one’ll ever get her mind back.”

The stranger raised an eyebrow. He didn’t
say anything, probably because it would hurt. But he did listen
with great interest from that point on.

“They helped the friends save a man. Then
they saved some slaves. Then they met a Knight of Reanna in the
ruins below Dralin.”

The man raised the other eyebrow. It seemed
they weren’t broken; probably the only things on him that
weren’t.

Frath reached out a hand. “Name’s Frath, by
the way.” Frath withdrew it when the man looked at it and then at
his own broken one.

“Tathan.” The voice was slightly less of a
croak.

Ice flowed through Frath’s veins. It wasn’t
a common name in the country of Altordan. Black hair, grey eyes and
a dark sword fit the description of the most notorious thief in all
the lands. “That wouldn’t be Tathan of the Shadows, would it?”