Rise of the Champion (The Sword of Kirakath Omnibus #1) (26 page)

As the assassin began to go limp, Caleb brushed him aside with his sword and stood ready to fight.

It was easy to see that not all of the assassins were dimwitted. As soon as Caleb had managed to take out the dual wielding assassin, two more had moved forward swiftly. They went in, swinging their swords horizontally. The blades moved parallel to each other, only about three inches separating them.

The damage that they would have done had they hit Caleb would have been crippling.

However, Caleb’s fighting capabilities were far beyond that of his enemies. He simply brought his sword up in a powerful uppercut that disarmed them and left them momentarily stunned.

Using the opening, he spun around, decapitating them both with one powerful swing.

His eyes narrowed as he spotted another assassin running at him, preparing to thrust. He was not sure if he could bring his sword in a defensive position quickly enough to deflect the blade, but it was not necessary.

The assassin dropped his sword as a knife suddenly slammed into the side of his neck.

Caleb quickly stuck his left hand out, grabbed the assassin’s cloak as he approached, and he flung the dying man off to the side. As the assassin crashed to the floor, two more knives soared through the tavern and struck down two assassins.

One of the three remaining assassins came charging at Caleb, but he was different than any of the others. Though Caleb had thought that he wielded a sica like the others at first, he came to realize that the blade’s shape was different. Its blade was slender and curved. From his recent travels, he recognized the sword as a scimitar.

He was barely able to bring his sword in front of him in time to block the quick, sweeping slash.

Caleb normally would have knocked back his attacker and finished it quickly, but he was not trained to be a fighter, even if the sword’s magic turned him into a warrior. He was growing exhausted.

The assassin punched Caleb unexpectedly, making him fall backwards and drop his sword.

He stumbled to the ground in a sitting position as the assassin walked up to him with his sword poised to end the fight.

Caleb was not ready to die though.

As the assassin swung his sword at Caleb to cut his head off, his right hand swung in front of him. In his hand, he held the sica of one of the assassins he had felled. It knocked the scimitar from the assassin’s hand easily. Caleb then kicked the assassin back, rose to his feet, and moved towards him.

On instinct, Caleb reached down, picked up his sword, and brought it around in a wide, fast arc.

He easily cleaved the assassin’s head from his shoulders.

As the assassin’s head hit the ground, Caleb saw that the other two assassins had been taken down already. It seemed that Nicolas had talent with knives.

Caleb exhaled a deep breath as he felt the fire in his blood suddenly become snuffed out as the magic of the Sword of Kirakath faded away.

Despite the fact that he had used the sword’s power quite a few times in the past year, he was unable to get used to the sensation of having such incredible power fill him and then to have it suddenly disappear.

“You’re pretty good with that sword,” Nicolas said, sitting on the bar with one of his knives in his right hand.

“That’s the sword’s magic,” Caleb said, shaking his head. “Without it, I doubt I could have beaten any of them.”

Nicolas looked skeptical of that claim, but he did not outright dispute it. “If you despise that sword as much as you appear to, then why do you rely on it so much? You might not be much of a swordsman now, but that could be fixed.”

Caleb looked away at that. He could not deny that being able to rely on his own skills would be a vast improvement over relying on the Sword of Kirakath, but he was not sure he wanted to become a warrior. While he gained basic fighting skills from his father, he had always wanted to be a hunter. He had tried to play the part of a warrior before, and it seemed that assassins were hunting him because of it.

“We’ll deal with that later,” Caleb said with a sigh. “I need to deal with this assassin problem at its source. Unfortunately, I don’t know how to find out who is after me or who hired them. That’s not my area of expertise.”

“You know, I think that’s right up my alley,” Nicolas said, making it sound as though he did not understand Caleb’s subtle request. “If someone is willing to keep coming after you after they’ve lost twenty assassins, then they have to have vast resources. I’ll find out who they are, and you can deal with the problem at its source.”

“Thanks,” Caleb said with a grin. “I knew I came to the right person.”

“Of course you did,” Nicolas said with a smile. “There’s no better person to help than your friend, after all.”

For the first time in a long time, Caleb truly felt content, despite the danger looming on the horizon.

“Now, I think we should get rid of their bodies. After that, you can get cleaned up and I’ll cook a stew. I’ll meet with my contact tomorrow.”

Chapter 5

About an hour after sunrise, Nicolas Edge was walking up to the front gates of Caldreth.

Because of his purposes there, he wore a charcoal gray hooded cloak over his fine black clothing, though the hood was down. The cloak was pinned together at his neck by a pin that bore the emblem of the black raven, the insignia of House Edge.

“What do you want, Nicolas?” the sole gate guard asked with crossed arms over his dull gray banditine cuirass.

“Do you intend to stop a noble at the gate for no reason?” Nicolas asked dryly. It was not the best kept secret around the city that he had tied to the Thieves’ Guild. If it was, then he would not have been forced to operate outside of the city. He did not have to worry about people knowing what he did though. What people knew did not matter. What they could prove, on the other hand, did.

“I’m sure no one would give a rat’s ass if I refused to let you enter. Everyone knows that even your own family despises you,” the guard replied, stroking the hilt of his sword.

With narrowed eyes, Nicolas brushed aside his cloak, revealing a scimitar at his left hip. “Say another word, and I will challenge you to a duel to the death. You have not only insulted my honor, but you have insulted the honor of my family. Do not forget your station again, commoner.”

The guard looked furious at the young man’s words, but he did not say another word.

Nicolas inwardly sighed as he walked through the gates. He hated acting the part of a noble, but it had its advantages. He was part of one of the most powerful noble families in the city of Caldreth. Even if his family was rather small in that day and age, it wielded a considerable amount of power. After all, he counted the magistrate as his uncle.

On instinct, he made his way down a side street and headed towards the part of the city that the Thieves’ Guild operated out of. That part of the city did not have a special name or anything, but it was easy to recognize. The streets looked run down, beggars were on every corner, and a good number of houses had wooden boards covering the windows.

In short, it was the bad part of town.

Once he was in the right part of town, he made his way into an unmarked back alley. As he entered the alley, he took a deep breath. A single door stood in the alleyway, and it was also a reminder that he was as far away from Castle Caldreth as he could possibly be without leaving the city.

While he was not fond of the castle, especially because of all the guards that they had there, he was not fond of what was on the other side of that door either: the base of Alexander Abrams.

Alexander Abrams was the man in charge of the Thieves’ Guild of Caldreth. In other words, Alexander was his boss.

The two of them had never been on great terms, especially after one he cut off the right hand of one of Alexander’s enforcers.

The bastard deserved it after he touched Katie.
It could be said that Nicolas saw himself as a big brother figure to Katie. It was not far from the truth either.

Taking a deep breath, he opened the door and walked through it into the unmarked tavern that Alexander Abrams used as his base.

As always, a couple people were sitting at the bar and a few people were sitting at the tables spread out across the room to his right. It seemed that there were always people drinking there, regardless of the time. Of course, some of the people there never left, and the tavern lacked windows. As such, it was easy to lose track of the time unless the door was opened.

He managed to get a dozen or so feet away from the door before the big, burly man behind the bar spoke.

“Where are you going, Edge? The boss went to visit his brother in Umbridge, so he’s not around right now.”

“I’m not here to speak with Alexander,” Nicolas said without even looking at him. “I’m a member of the guild, remember? I can come here anytime I want.”

“You’re a high profile guy. If you lead guards here, the boss is going to kill you,” he remarked.

“I’m not the one you should be worried about right now. If you continue to piss me off, it’ll be your life at risk, not mine,” Nicolas retorted darkly.

“You can’t kill me,” the man said nervously. “Killing a fellow guildsman is against the code.”

“You work for the Thieves’ Guild as a bartender. You gave up your career as an enforcer long ago. You aren’t a guildsman,” Nicolas said, effectively shutting him up.

With that man dealt with, Nicolas walked across the tavern and went through a door that led into a hallway. Four doors were visible. Three of them were on the wall in front of him, and one was to his right, at the end of the hallway. That last door was where he headed to.

Opening the door, he saw a man in his mid-thirties sitting on a poorly made bed with clothes on that made him look as though he just crawled out of the sewers. The only other thing in the room was a dresser that looked even more poorly made than the bed.

“Ed, I need information,” Nicolas said immediately. He drew the scimitar at his left hip and handed it to the man.

The man, a member of the Thieves’ Guild by the name of Edward Smith, took the scimitar curiously and looked it over.

“This is a scimitar, a sword that originates in Tiberia. In the Tiberian Jungle, it helps to have a curved sword for fighting. It makes it easier to swing the sword without hitting something accidentally,” Ed said.

“I’m this close to kicking your ass,” Nicolas said as he held his right hand out with his index finger and thumb about a quarter of an inch apart. “I know what a scimitar is. It’s my second favorite type of sword.”

“Then what do you need?” Ed asked, shaking his head. “I can’t read minds.”

“My friend has assassins after him. They’re pretty good and come in fairly large numbers. If they were going after anyone else, they would have succeeded, but Caleb’s something else,” Nicolas answered. “Twenty assassins have come after him. One of them wielded that scimitar.”

If Ed was surprised at the numbers, he did not show it. “You want to know who is trying to kill him.”

Nicolas nodded his head. “Only a guild of assassins would pursue him this diligently and have so many men to spare on his elimination.”

“You’re correct,” Ed said as he looked over the sword. “Fortunately, there are only three guilds of assassins in the entire kingdom. The least likely is the Crimson Arrows out of Tir. It’s too damned far for them to be involved, and their assassins are all archers. Their trademark is an arrow with crimson feathers. They always use one to kill their targets. Then, there’s the Shadow Guild of Telmir. It’s essentially a combination of a thieves’ guild and an assassins’ guild. They’re pretty far away, but they’ll take almost any job, so long as it doesn’t put them at odds with any of the other disreputable guilds in Arcadia.”

“What’s the third guild?” Nicolas asked.

Ed frowned. “The third assassins’ guild is the Night Blades of Umbridge. They are the single most dangerous guild of their kind in the world. They have assassinated kings, queens, dukes, counts, viscounts, and barons over the years since their founding. They were founded before Arcadia was, if that tells you anything.” He sighed as he shook his head. “They aren’t as dangerous as they used to be though. No one’s as dangerous as they used to be, really. We’ve been at peace for a hundred years. A hundred years ago, the Night Blades counted a thousand men under their employ and Arcadia had ten thousand knights. Now, I hear that the Night Blades only have a hundred men and only a thousand knights serve King John.”

He sure knows a lot about the Night Blades. I suppose it’s a good thing that they’re not as numerous as they could have been though.

“How many men do the Crimson Arrows and the Shadow Guild have?” Nicolas asked.

“The Shadow Guild has around twenty-five assassins and seventy-five thieves,” Ed replied. “And there are always fifty assassins among the Crimson Arrows. When one of them dies, another steps up in his place. I’m told that they have roughly a hundred recruits at all times though.”

“How is it that the Night Blades are considered to be so dangerous then?” Nicolas asked, slightly confused. “The Crimson Arrows sound more dangerous to me.”