Off Armageddon Reef (32 page)

Merlin released the governors he'd set on his reaction time and strength, and his katana flashed with literally inhuman speed as he bounded a single long pace forward.

The first guardsman never had time to grasp what was happening. His head leapt from his shoulders before he realized he'd seen the blade move, and Merlin's wrists turned as he brought the blade flashing back across in a flat figure-eight. Another head flew before the first victim's knees had even begun to buckle, and then Merlin recovered, still with that impossible speed and precision, and drove the katana's chisel point straight through a third guardsman's cuirass—breast and backplate alike.

He twisted his blade, withdrew it, and leapt backward, recovering his original position and stance, all in the same flashing movement, before the first corpse had hit the floor.

Kahlvyn Ahrmahk's eyes went wide in disbelief as Merlin Athrawes savaged his guardsmen like a kraken rising hungry from the depths. One instant, the
seijin
was standing there, smiling at him. The next, the library exploded in blood, and then, suddenly, Merlin was back exactly where he'd been two seconds before…but he faced only twelve opponents.

Zhahnsyn and the other guardsmen froze. It wasn't cowardice, wasn't panic. It was simple surprise, and even that wasn't their fault. For just a moment, they stared at their three dead fellows, the water-dripping apparition which had killed them, and the blood spreading across the library's parquet floor in a tide of crimson. Then—

“
Spread out!
” Zhahnsyn barked, and the survivors moved forward, fanning out to envelop their single opponent.

Gray Harbor was at least as astonished as anyone else. He'd never imagined such speed and power, but he realized almost instantly that however lethal the
seijin
might be, he faced one fatal disadvantage.

He was trying to protect Gray Harbor.

He was like a single war galley, anchored to the defense of a fat, lumbering merchantman while a dozen scruffy pirates lunged and dashed at his charge. Not one of them could hope to face him in single combat, but they didn't need to do anything so foolish. As long as he was tied down protecting the earl, Tirian's men could choose their moment and coordinate their attacks, and there was nothing Gray Harbor could do about it. Even if he'd been properly armed, he would only have gotten in Merlin's way, and he knew it, however humiliating admitting it might be. But if he couldn't help, then surely there had to be some way he could at least—

“Look to yourself,
Seijin
!” he barked, and leapt directly away from the cautiously advancing guardsmen.

Tirian cursed as his father-in-law sprang for the wrought-iron spiral stair to the balcony catwalk that served the library's upper rows of shelves. The duke had installed that whimsically ornate creation as a gift for his wife on their third anniversary. Zhenyfyr Ahrmahk loved books at least as much as her husband or father ever had, and she'd laughed in delight at the absurdity of his surprise. Not that it hadn't been practical, as well; certainly it was more convenient for someone in long skirts than the steep, rolling ladders it had replaced.

One of the duke's guards recognized the earl's intent quickly enough to lunge forward, trying to grapple with the older man before he reached the stair. But his effort brought him into Merlin's reach, and the
seijin
's sword licked out with that same blinding speed. It bit effortlessly through flesh and bone, blood exploded in a hot, stinking fan, and the guardsman went down with a wailing scream as razor-sharp steel sheared through the thick bone of his femur as cleanly as an ax and amputated his left leg three inches above the knee.

The other guards were slower to react, and Gray Harbor raced up the ornamental treads, dagger shining in his hand. From its top, he could hope to hold off even a sword-armed opponent at least briefly. More importantly, it got him out of the reach of any immediate threat.

Tirian's remaining guardsmen realized what that meant almost as quickly as the duke had, and their cautious advance became a sudden rush. They surged forward through their fallen fellows' shrieks, seeking to engulf Merlin before he took advantage of his sudden mobility.

But quick as they were, they weren't quick enough. Merlin made no effort to evade them; he came to
meet
them.

Captain Yowance of the Royal Charisian Navy had been no stranger to combat, and the Earl of Gray Harbor recognized carnage when he saw it. But he'd never imagined anything like this.

Tirian's guardsmen tried to swarm over Merlin, but it was like a school of herring trying to swarm a kraken. The
seijin
seemed to stride forward almost casually, but his peculiar sword was a blur of motion. It moved literally too quickly for the eye to follow, and armor meant nothing before its impossible sharpness. Bodies—and bits of bodies—flew away from him in gory sprays of blood, and the peaceful library became an abattoir. Men screamed and cursed and died, and Merlin Athrawes moved through the chaos untouched, dealing death like the Archangel Schueler himself.

Kahlvyn Ahrmahk was no coward, but an icy wave of fear washed through him. Like his guards, he'd discounted the wild rumors and speculation about Merlin. Now, as he watched his men go down—some of them screaming in agony; most dead before they hit the floor—he knew he'd been wrong. He knew the ridiculous rumor that the mysterious foreigner was a
seijin
was true, after all…and that all the preposterous tales, all the stupid heroic ballads and children's stories, about
seijin
and their superhuman powers weren't preposterous at all.

His surviving guardsmen—all six of them—were no longer advancing to envelop Merlin. They were falling back, huddling together. None of Tirian's guards had ever lacked courage, but this was too much, something beyond their experience or comprehension. They hadn't panicked, even now—there hadn't really been
time
for that—but the deadly sense of how totally outclassed they were had driven them completely onto the defensive, and even as Tirian watched, another of them fell to Merlin's implacable blade.

He's not human!

The thought flashed through the duke's mind, and he shook himself, fighting to throw off his own incipient panic. His brain raced, and he drew a deep breath.

There was still a way, if he could only get out of the library before Merlin reached him. Wyllyms was out there somewhere, and surely the clash of steel, the screams, had to have alerted the majordomo. He
must
have already sounded the alarm for the rest of Tirian's personal guards! If the duke could reach those guards first, he could tell them how Merlin had exploded out of the night in an effort to assassinate him, how the supposed
seijin
had taken Gray Harbor hostage. However deadly Merlin might be, Tirian had the next best thing to another sixty men ready to hand, and most of them were as well trained with bows or arbalests as with swords. And if, in the process of retaking the library, there should be a tragic accident, or if Merlin should cut the earl's throat rather than allow him to be rescued, or—

Yet another guardsman folded up around the bitter steel buried in his belly, and Tirian turned.

A corner of Merlin's attention saw the duke turn and race for the library's door. He realized instantly what Tirian had in mind, but there were still four guardsmen between him and the traitor. He couldn't kill them quickly enough to—

The Earl of Gray Harbor's belt dagger flashed in the lamplight as it flew across the library. It was heavy, awkward, and not really properly balanced for throwing, but the earl's hand had not forgotten the captain's skill entirely, and grief and terror had burned the alcohol out of his system.

Kahlvyn Ahrmahk, Duke of Tirian, rose on his toes like a dancer, arms flung wide, spine arched, and mouth open in agony, as ten lethal inches of steel drove into his back. A jeweled hilt blossomed between his shoulder blades, blood sprayed from his lips, and he crashed facedown to the floor.

The pounding on Braidee Lahang's door was furious enough to wake him despite the tumult of the storm.

His immediate reaction was one of panic. No spy wanted to hear an official fist battering on his door in the middle of the night, and he could think of very few
non
official errands which might bring someone out on a night like this one. But then his panic eased just a bit. When Baron Wave Thunder's agents came to call on a suspected spy, they were seldom so polite as to bother to knock. Doors had a way of becoming splinters in the course of their visits, although on the (rare) occasions when they demolished the wrong person's door, they were very good about replacing it, later.

Still, it was unlikely that whoever was knocking at his door was here in any official capacity, and he felt his heartbeat slow just a bit as he climbed out of bed.

He'd selected his lodgings not simply because they were close to the heart of the city, or even because of the roof space available for his wyvern coops. Those were factors, of course, yet an even more important one was the fact that the building's ground-floor was occupied by a ship chandler during the day but empty at night. That gave Lahang a certain degree of anonymity on the occasions when he was expecting callers after hours. He'd made a few additional judicious modifications without benefit of discussion with his landlord, as well, and he paused well to one side of his second-story door and peered through the inconspicuous peephole he'd bored through the wall.

There was no lamp in the hallway or on the stairs. Since there wasn't normally any traffic after dark, there was no point risking the accidental fire an unattended candle or lamp might lead to. But Lahang's visitor had brought a bull's-eye lantern, and Lahang's eyebrows rose as he recognized the other man by the light streaming from its opened slide.

His initial alarm returned, if in a rather less acute version. Marhys Wyllyms had delivered several messages to him over the past few years, and Lahang was aware that Duke Tirian trusted his majordomo's discretion implicitly. But Wyllyms had never arrived in the middle of the night without warning, or without any of the signals Tirian and Lahang had devised to alert one another that they needed to make contact. Unexpected messages like this, especially ones which carried such a risk of exposure, were only marginally more welcome to a spymaster than the heavy-handed minions of the Crown.

He drew a deep breath, opened the door part way, leaving the safety chain latched, and peered out.

“What?” he asked, his voice harsh.

“I have a package from the Duke,” Wyllyms replied.

“Well, hand it over,” Lahang said briskly, extending his hand through the gap.

“It won't fit,” Wyllyms said reasonably, and drew a fat package, wrapped in oilskin against the weather, out from under his streaming poncho.

“What is it?” Lahang asked, already reaching to unlatch the chain.

“He didn't tell me.” Wyllyms shrugged. “There's been some trouble at the townhouse, though. I wouldn't be surprised if it's documents he needs to get rid of.”

“Trouble?” Lahang's eyes sharpened, and he opened the door fully. “What kind of trouble?”

“Nothing we can't handle, I think,” Wyllyms said, handing him the package. The spy took it almost absently, his eyes so focused on Wyllyms' face that he never noticed the majordomo's hand sliding back under his poncho until it reemerged with the dagger.

Even then, Lahang didn't really
notice
the blade. In fact, he still hadn't seen it when it severed his throat in a steaming gush of blood.

Prince Nahrmahn's chief agent in Charis thudded to the floor with a dying gurgle, and Wyllyms stepped back, grimacing as he regarded the spray pattern on the front of his poncho.

Well, no matter, he thought. The rain would wash away the stains quickly enough…just as Lahang's death would wash away the information about Wyllyms true patron which he might have provided to Wave Thunder's investigators.

Now all Wyllyms had to do was get back to Emerald, himself.