The Exodus Sagas: Book I - Of Spiders And Falcons (33 page)

“Let us also
pretend
you have a few more men, so you can feel confidant.” The cursed swordsman swaggered in small circles, blades held in typical alternate positions, glaring his eyes into each one of them, seeing who would tremble and thus die first. The young red haired man in the back blinked several times, nominating himself to Kendari. He turned, feinting to confront the speaker of the band of cutthroats, then stepped quick with his left foot, putting his fist to his abdomen, and with the reverse held blade, drove it into the unsuspecting youth’s chest. Forward with his right foot, Shiver cut across the saber of his other flanking opponent with a downward faced sweeping attack, throwing the mans sword arm out away from the elf. In one fluid motion, the back held longsword cut down, Kendari continuing his lightning quick steps, and the loose saber was knocked to the ground before the assassin could recover his guard. Disarmed, the criminal reached for a dagger from his belt as be backpedaled, but the speed of Shiver and its wielder caught him across the neck, searing flesh and blood in a steaming gash that left him choking for air, blood draining out of him like a midnight fountain. Kendari turned, pivoting gracefully on his toes to face the remaining five that had barely reacted to his inhumanly rapid attacks on their men. “Let me guess, they told you to
surround
me?”

Having second thoughts, waiting for an order from their quartermaster behind them, seeing two of their men die in the blink of an eye, the assassins remained ready, but still.

“I despise the saber, do you know
why
? It is for pirates, cavalry, thieves, and gentlemen duels. I kill pirates and thieves,
hate
horses, and am distrustful of royalty.” Kendari walked purposefully in the pool of blood at his feet, smiling wide and making as much eye contact as possible. He knew he had them scared, could tell by their stares, their lack of action, their hesitation. These boys were promised all the pleasures and riches of the White Spider, trained with stealth and saber, outfitted, and sent to die. Some of them, branded forever, were now realizing what membership entailed. They had been told they were the deadliest organization on the continent, egos fed from the prince to the prostitutes. Johnas had failed to mention the names of Syrma Shatan, Avricas and Sylette Sasarri, and Kendari of Stillwood. The patriarch would never tell them that there were those far beyond their training that have never, and
would never
, be a part of their continents-spanning web of criminals. And now the boys shook in fear and the cursed swordsman almost felt a twinge of pity, then dismissed it as hunger, resuming his contemplating of the finish of those that came to kill him. It was them now, or himself later, someone had to die. The Nadderi looked up from the bloodstains on his enchanted boots, feeling content to begin the slaughter of these terrified five men and find an exit from this holy temple.

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Snow began to fall again, this time harder and with wind blowing from the east. The five midnight warriors, backs to the wall to the western tower, took rest and cover from the cold. Bolts clanked on the gray stone, two of them, Saberrak pulling them free of his flesh with a low growl each time. Blood ran down his leg and shoulder though he did not seem to mind. Shinayne paced in front, weapons still drawn, waiting for more assassins to emerge from the shadows. She noticed the bleeding on the minotaur, and looked at her hand which had stopped letting blood for now, though her leather glove soaked and split from the lucky deflection of the black clad killer. “James, help him please.” The elven swordswoman nodded for the weary knight, exhausted from too many nights with the bottle, to tend to their horned friend.

“I thought ye said there was
a
hunter loose in the streets of your city, my lady. That seemed to me more than one.” Azenairk was trying to dislodge the bolt and dagger from James’ shield without ruining it further.

“What I told you was true, dwarf. I had no idea there were that many laying wait for you, and nor that any besides myself was aware of your coming.” Gwenneth remarked quickly, never liking any accusations that her words were not correct.

“Then may I ask again,
who
or
what
is this hunter after, if not us and that scroll?”

“Tomes of High Elven Magic, this killer thinks they are here, when really they are heading north with an elf and a satyr. I did not think any attentions to your scroll were being made, besides my own and that of a few trusted professors at the academy. All eyes are supposed to be on the other end of the city.”

Shinayne, facing away from them, watching the snow drift across the beautiful city, heard what she needed to
. Lavress
, she thought,
had the tomes and was heading north with Bedesh
. Hunted, but he was alive and with diversions to aid him. A smile and dampened eyes rose upon her face, the elf thanking Siril silently for whatever blessings he had given to her lover to have made it this far in one piece. Shinayne thought too, of Bedesh, thankful that he had found a way out of wherever the Nadderi and his trolls had taken him. That wish, sincere as it was, did not sit well for Shinayne. She knew full well what the trolls and that swordsman had probably done to poor Bedesh of Haven Glen. If she had one wish now, gazing at the stars, it would be for another chance at that cursed elf, and a chance to save her little horned forest friend whatever pains he had suffered at his hands.

James concentrated, pushed out the thoughts of wine and more wine for a moment, and placed his hand on Saberrak’s shoulder. The minotaur looked down at him, a look that would have backed up even the bravest of men, yet James had his eyes closed. He focused on the light releasing from his body through his hand and to the torn flesh of his horned friend. He opened his eyes, the light blue glowing under the tower of Lazlette, staring at the flesh and skin mending from the puncture. As it closed, James looked up, everyone staring at him. Saberrak had a look of bewilderment and amazement that the knight could not place.

“You saw him, under the ruins, chained up. You saw the same man with the same blue glowing eyes as the light from your hand. That was thirteen years ago and you did see him didn’t you James Andellis?” Saberrak looked at him, knowing that it was impossible yet he had a feeling that he was right.

“No, Saberrak, it could not have been the same man. I was there, carried out by ogre, the lone survivor of my men, sent as a warning to Southwind Keep. The man was naked, bearded, with glowing eyes, but that was thirteen years ago. That man surely died down there.” James did not look up at him, instead concentrated on repeating his gift to the wounded thigh of the minotaur.

“It
was
. You describe him as I
saw
him. He healed my wounds with the same light, and gave me this scroll when I freed him. He had been there a very long time. Who
is he
, James?” raising his voice, Saberrak was getting impatient, wanting answers from a man that did not wish to recall the place in time in question. He thought for a moment it was to spite him from earlier resistance to painful queries about his men of the keep in Unlinn.

“I do not know, I could not help him or anyone else!
Understand
?! I might as well have been dead like the rest of my men! Now, if you don’t mind, let us retire the matter
entirely
.” James had not yelled in many days, since the two young merchant boys were killed north of the ruins. He had held it all in for too long and had not had any wine today to keep it at bay.

“From what I know, no men survived the battle of Arouland that you speak of and I would much prefer not to hear more of it either.” Gwenneth ended the discussion, staring at the sword of her father and the medal of Chazzrynn pinned to the tabard of James Andellis. She realized now, where she remembered the hilt of that blade from and remembered where she had heard her father perished. That sword, the griffon hilt, was her father’s or an exact replica, she knew it.

“Agreed. There were no survivors and that is how everyone remembers it, so shall we? May we get out of the cold my Lady Lazlette?’ James stood up, unable to concentrate on the wounded minotaur with all this frustration.

“Yes, follow me.” Gwenneth raised her hand, touching the stone door in the alcove, illuminating arcane words that had not been there a moment before. Tracing them, muttering a few words of indecipherable incantation, the stone door slid open on its own. Gwenne walked into the dark corridor to the spiral stairs, waiting for the rest to enter, then waved her hand. “
Shiliaaf
” she whispered and the door slid shut again concealing them in the darkness of the western stone tower of Lazlette.

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The woman’s hand touched the neck of one of the men on the marble floor.
Warm, but no heartbeat, two cuts that had bled out maybe several minutes ago,
she thought. Seven altogether she noticed in the dark, the western door to the Temple of Golden Mercy left open, snow collecting on the corners and melting in the pools of blood. The cathedral began to stir from the eastern side, no one down here yet to see the dead men. Angeline sheathed her hand-and-a-half sword letting it swing back behind her hips and knelt down near one of the corpses. She tugged the leather armor and blood soaked clothing off of him, inspecting his body for markings. Sure enough, as she had suspected, a pink and white branding scar on the left shoulder blade, one of the White Spider and it was fresh. The mysterious bodyguard tied her long curly hair back with a knot in black cloth, closed her eyes and whispered to the walls and the stone floor. The echo of her whispers trailing down the hall, reverberating back, and the sound was slightly different. Not in any spoken language understood by even the most scholarly professors, but a language that had never been written nor taught to anyone not of Angeline’s secretive sect. The whispers told her, her eyes opening, that the killer was nearby, the being responsible was very close, to her left in a stairwell.

Just in time, the strange warrior drew her enchanted hand-and-a-half blade, left hand below the right and turned the blade to parry to the left and down. Her blade met two rapid cuts from longswords, sparking as they clanged on her steel weapon. Two more came slashes out from the dark figure with menacing eyes, one met the crosspiece and she turned her wrist to deflect it harmlessly, the other blade, rippling with heat, cut across at her exposed neck which Angeline reared back from by inches. Not able to match the speed of this killer, not his two attacks against her one blade, the silent bodyguard concentrated. Thinking on the air forming under her boots, she lifted up as she deflected and parried the lightning strikes of the pale faced swordsman. Her body, chainmail and all, rose into the air almost ten feet, and her balance was perfect on top of the nearly invisible swirl of wind. Angeline crouched, rising near the temple ceiling, out of reach from the marked elf that had tried to kill her. There were no words between them, just stares, neither able to make contact with the other, an awkward silent length of moments. More voices now, getting closer from the western doors and within the Temple itself. They both looked each direction, surveying the best route out.

Kendari headed west, sheathing his weapons simultaneously, ducking outside the western doors before the city guard entered and sunk into the night. Angeline Berren hovered low, keeping to the shadows of the corridor, not stepping nor making sound above that of the blowing winds from outside, and tried to follow the killer into Vallakazz. She rose again, hiding behind the statue of Alden almost thirty feet high outside. She watched the Vallakazz soldiers enter the western doors below her, oblivious to her presence above. Angeline tried to spot the elf, but he was gone. Not a sound on the wind, not a trail in the snowy streets, not a motion caught in the shadows. The mysterious bodyguard waited and watched the rooftops, waiting for him to emerge from shadow once again.

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Warmth of the chamber refreshed the five cold and injured acquaintances the moment they entered. Gwenneth snapped her fingers, the purple and blue torches flashing to magical life, offsetting the low warm glow of the lit hearth. Her chambers as she had left them, organized, locked, and with several glyphs hidden on various walls that only she knew were there. Some to protect her books, a few for some enchanted gifts she had received, and one to alert her if anyone other than herself had entered the room.

Azenairk poked around, peering at vivid colors of bottles and gold trimmed tomes on bookshelves. Staves in the corners, wands on the desk, scrolls and tomes everywhere he looked, the priest was amazed that a human wizard had accumulated this sort of trove so young. It was larger than the library in the temple of Vundren, that being a small study in comparison.

Shinayne looked out the paned glass windows, frost growing in streaks on the outside, and admired the city again, this time from high above it. Her thoughts drifted with the snow, to Lavress Tilaniun, wherever he may be proving himself again to the court of the Whitemoon with yet another act of salvation for the mystical fey monarchy and the elven kingdoms. She so wished to be at his side, night and day, regardless of trial or terror, this kingdom or that, to hear his voice whisper in her ear anything at all.

“What are we doing here, Lady of Lazlette? “ Saberrak huffed under his drooping eyes and tired spirit.

“We are keeping safe and inspecting what it is that makes you so sought after by so many. May I see the scroll now?”

“I had thought we were going to the Temple of Golden
something
, to meet father
someone
?”