The Exodus Sagas: Book I - Of Spiders And Falcons (40 page)

“Lady Aelaine, Gwenneth never approached the eastern gate, but captain Shilde and his men had it reinforced well. Angeline and the captain met heavy attacks in the merchant district, a battle that is near its end now. But no sign of your daughter of her companions, they must have found another way out, my lady.” Hithins picked at his feathers, removing ones that were burned or bent from injury with his curved white beak.

“Hithins, find my daughter. Search the skies to the east. Find her before our enemies do.” The command was calm, but arcane bonds of old magicks compelled the snow vulture to do so. He flew off through the ruined wall of the ninth floor of the academy with a squawk.

The old professor placed his hand on Aelaine’s shoulder, “We will find Gwenneth before anyone else Aelaine, you know that.”

“I hope so Middir, I hope so.”

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Angeline Berren ducked under the high slashing crosscuts of the assassin, the only one remaining on the rooftop. Despite watching his fellow murderers fall to their deaths from the ice she created and her deadly blade, this one pushed on. Humming in her silence, a constant hum that came from her chest as she carefully backed up, the silent beauty of a warrior spoke with the sky for any assistance it might have. She cut upward with both hands at the black masked mercenary, his saber and dagger coming together to block the attack. He riposted quick with the dagger toward her throat, which she deflected with an upward stroke of the bastard sword, then came the saber, a thrust aimed into her abdomen. She turned sideways, balancing cautiously on the peak of the slanted stone roof covered in ice. Her elbow thrust out, cracking across the man’s chin with her body weight behind it, knocking him back a step.

“Lil whore with a blade, eh? Just relax and let mebe fixin’ yer worries then.”

She backed up as well, giving distance between the two, which was to Angeline’s advantage with the reach of her weapon. She had wanted to retort, but her vow would not allow it. The gray and white motion caught her eye from the corner, as a flock of diving pigeons railed into the White Spider assassin, throwing him off balance as they swarmed his upper body and head.
Cooing
and fluttering in the commotion, countless birds scratching and poking with sharp beaks and clawed feet. Assisting for only a moment in the cold winter sun, the birds continued their journey through the city skies, leaving an outraged killer, fighting to regain his composure.

She wasted no time, stepping in and cutting down from a high guard, his saber and dagger once again parrying the attack. Her hard boot heel kicked out into his stomach, releasing his pent frustration and doubling the assassin over. His blades went out, half an expected parry or weakened reflexive balancing act. Angeline’s hand-and-a-half sword chopped down, a sweeping cut that knocked the saber blade and disarmed the dagger from his hand. Her knee went up hard as she stepped in, making direct contact with his jaw again, sending him careening down the slanted icy roof and falling to the hard cold street below. The silent warrior sheathed her sword and walked off the edge, the wind letting her float down gently. Her boots touched down next to five broken bodies, two of them still alive and groaning in agonies of shattered bones.

The guards that had followed her up came rushing down the stairs, two of them with a masked assailant bound and bloody. Captain Kendrynn Shilde, holding his right forearm, marched the middle of Candelabra street with twelve of his twenty behind him, his breastplate cut and bloodied from the men he had killed. He looked to the heavy guard he had posted at the eastern gate, the gate that was still quiet several hundred feet away. He looked to Angeline, the guards approaching behind her, and did a quick count of hers and his own.

“We lost ten men here, lost ten taking on well over thirty. White Spider agents for certain. Most likely from Valhirst. We have one prisoner?” Kendrynn looked to Angeline for a response, one he assumed he would not get. She looked at him, then to the writhing men on the cold cobblestone behind her, then to the two bound being walked toward them.

“Very well, two prisoners and two sets of broken bones, well done. Well done. No daughter of Lady Lazlette to the eastern gate, eh?”

Angeline could not speak, her vow would not allow it until Middir had relieved her of it and had forgiven her. She shook her head from side to side, answering a visual no, and started looking around the merchant quarter as shopkeepers and commoners began to emerge once again from the morning battle. She saw nothing, not a sign of the killer she met in the temple nor the group of travelers that Gwenneth had snuck in the academy. Plenty of assassins waiting for them, and many that knew, or thought they knew, where Aelaine’s daughter would be heading this morning. Angeline gave a deep bow to the men and the captain, turned and walked toward the academy grounds to inform Middir that she had not found Gwenneth Lazlette.

“I need the men from the eastern gate, and send for any priests and clergy the temple can spare. We have many dead and injured. Well done men, well fought.” Kendrynn thought of Angeline, her silence, and then of the majority of the citizens that knew nothing of the danger the city had been in this morning. “Continue the search for Gwenneth Lazlette, and her company that entered the west gate last night. Send more men to the other gates, the academy grounds, and get the prisoners to the keep for questioning.” Captain Kendrynn Shilde sheathed his broadsword, and walked a frustrated step, confused as to what could possibly bring such a force to Vallakazz.

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The guards, readied in their chainmail armor, open faced helms, steel shields, bladed polearms and broadswords, did not notice the Nadderi walking between the two mules. Kendari crouched, walked carefully as to not be stepped on by a hoof, and kept the tip of his enchanted longsword to the back of the young boy leading his property back to his family farmstead. The guards paid no mind, discussing the added men to the eastern gate and gossiping about late night travelers with horns that came in from the west last night. The boy did not flinch, and kept his pace as instructed. Over the bridge past the portcullis, over the tributaries of Lake Pellicram that surrounded Vallakazz and into the wide open rolling hills of the surrounding rural area. “Keep walking, that’s perfect. Head east now, and do not
think
to try anything brave. I have killed fifteen men since last night. One more is not going to lose me any sleep. Get me to the eastern road to Valhirst and you will retain your extremities.”

The boy, about sixteen seasons, light brown hair and blue terror filled eyes, did not say a word, just did as he was told. His family was away trading to Valhirst, he knew he was alone. Terror of being killed with no one to help began to take his mind.

Kendari watched the eastern gate from afar, seeing that it had not opened, and it was still heavily guarded. His concern was that the White Spider had gotten hold of the scroll, or worse yet, the city had covered the elven woman and her companions and made an attempt impossible. Regardless, he would hunt for the trail of the satyr and the wood elf and pursue the books for Salah-Cam if the wait for the scroll was looking to be unrewarding.

The trails crossed his path, merchant trails and hunting trails, and the eastern road lay ahead. It had been an hour’s walk and Kendari noticed nothing that would give sign of a follow from Vallakazz. “Far enough boy.”

The mules came to a halt, steam rising from each nostril in the cold, the sun rising in the west cast long shadows across the snow covered tufts of grass and brush. “Are you going to kill me here? If you are, let me have a weapon to defend myself with please.” The boy was shaking, teary eyed, words emitting from trembling lips. Brave in the face of such a killer at such a young age.

“If I wanted you dead, you would be dead. Blade or no blade, boy. You have nothing I want, you will live to tell your family you met Kendari of Stillwood unless you have other plans.” Kendari sheathed his longsword and walked past the animals, examining the trails that crossed the main eastern road. “What is your name?”

“Oggidan.” The boy stared at the steel mail under the black fine clothes, the engraved steel bracers, miraculous leather boots, onyx ring, and enchanted weapons that this wicked and cursed elf carried. He looked at the curling black designs of his skin above the veins on his face and hands, wondering what sort of elf would mark himself so. “Why are you marked like that?”

“That is a question that only dead men ask, and the Gods can answer. Be off, Oggidan, your moments get fewer the longer you stay near me.” Kendari was paying no mind to the unarmed boy this far from the city, he had served his purpose.

“Did you kill the men in the Temple of Golden Mercy, the bishop? You did, you are the one they are looking for,
aren’t you
?” the boy was trembling, cold, crunching his feet in the snow with eyes searching for anyone nearby. His breath was becoming rapid, panicking, unable to walk away or stop his mind from becoming fear and anger driven.

“Walk away boy, you have a family that is waiting for you. I have some tracking to do, so carry on.” Kendari kept an eye on him now, seeing the panic take over, the distrust and hatred telling him that as soon as his back turned, that he would be killed by this elven demon. The young usually had such extreme imbalances of drama and lack of common sense.

The boy lunged from the side at the cursed swordsman, grabbing for the longsword on the cursed killer’s right hip. His hand reached the pyramid pommel, and pulled as he stumbled back, gripping it with two hands and bringing it to a trembling on guard. “Surrender now! You have committed murder and are wanted by the city of Vallakazz!” Oggidan stepped forward to the unarmed elf, and pointed the blade inches from his face, staring and shaking at what he had just done, unable to believe it himself.

“Give me my blade, boy, and I will let you…” the weapon, his own weapon, cut at his head. Kendari ducked under the attack, an unskilled attack but quick and foolish, making it just as dangerous. He was amazed the boy had gotten it from him, or even dared try. His hand went to Shiver on his hip. “One last chance Oggidan, drop my sword. I only need one to kill you with.” he motioned with his hand open for the boy to stand down, but sensed that his terror had full control, mixed with youthful stupidity and a bit of false heroism. The enchanted blade swung again, off balance with two hands on the hilt. He meant to split Kendari down the middle. He sidestepped, and drew his magical heated blade. The youth thrust forward, and the elf parried easily, almost sending the blade into the boys face with the precision of the deflection. The youth did not stop, he pressed on, recklessly swinging the longsword toward the body of the elf who merely countered and used his feet to avoid contact. “You can not kill me boy, and I will leave your corpse in the snow if I must.” His intimidation was falling on deaf ears, the kid was beyond anger blended with patriotism, religion, panic, he had no choice.

Kendari waited, blade tip to the ground, causing steam from melting snow as Shiver’s heat continued to release. Young Oggidan feinted a high cut toward the head, lowered his elbows, an easy signal for a thrust that gave away the feint entirely. As his arms outstretched with the tip diving toward Kendari’s chest, the Nadderi cursed elf turned a half step, flicked his blade up underneath the charging sword, knocking the attack an inch above his shoulder. In the same instant he cut down at the boy’s wrist, the left one, slicing clean through, the severed hand still clenching the grip of the blade. His third cut was a cross cut into his own weapon, sending the stolen longsword off into the snow, one hand still attached. The boy screamed from the pain, from the burn of the hot edge of Shiver, from the horror of losing a hand. His bravado and ego destroyed with three simple cuts, his pack animals trudging ahead without him, startled from the screaming, Oggidan ran. He began yelling for help and for guards in the open fields in manic rage. He ran and screamed like a young girl, not the mountain of a young man he had just thought he was. Kendari knew he could kill him right now, before anyone heard him, knew that he should. But he did not. He walked over his dropped weapon, picked it up by the crosspiece, and removed the boy’s bloody hand from the grip, flinging it into the snow. The Nadderi elf sheathed his weapons, and continued down the eastern road to Valhirst, searching for the trail of the escaped satyr he had followed, the one that had split off to Vallakazz, or so he had thought. He shook his head at the stupidity of the boy, and at himself, not understanding why he had no desire to kill him. Kendari wondered if it was pity he felt at this moment, or boredom.

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Caravan wheels pulled by shaggy hoofed horses of white and gray crunched in the snow, weighted down by the load in the back. Deer and elk pelts on the top, but underneath lay a gray skinned minotaur, and elven noblewoman, a dwarven priest rubbing his shaved head, a trembling veteran warrior thirsting for more wine, and the daughter of the most powerful woman in Vallakazz. The caravan, paid for that morning by a young student wizard at Gwenneth’s request, had run into difficulty trying to exit the eastern gate and headed to the southern gate to avoid the snow covered hills of the northern routes. Before they had left, they were hailed by their passenger and her companions, much to the surprise of the fur traders. Two covered wagons with a family of four left Vallakazz heading east toward the small rural village of South Darmoun, halfway to Valhirst, with their most unusual and sought after commodities safely hidden.

Half a day passed, traversing the small trail that led to the eastern road to South Darmoun. Olenn Chilar and his two daughters tethered the horses of both wagons to the bare winter oaks and prepared to make camp for a few hours. Little blonde girls of seven and four years, Nika and Kirrai helped their pregnant mother off of the seat. The black winter wolf’s pelts and layers of cold weather blankets and robes made movement for the nearing mother difficult. “You all right Leina? Girls, careful with your mother there, she’s carrying your little sister now.” Olenn‘s beard was frosted from brown to white from hours at the reins, his legs stiff from sitting. He got up, looked around, searching for any followers that might be spying, sensing the amount of gold he received for silence from the Lady Lazlette’s daughter was generous and likely, dangerous. He grabbed his broadsword and sheath from behind the wagon seat, and strapped the weapon to his belt. “My Lady, I believe we are far from danger here. You and yours come on out and eat if you like.”