The Exodus Sagas: Book II - Of Dragons And Crowns (46 page)

“
Clluunkk, thewwmmp
!” Before the Nadderi elf could react, a crossbow bolt sunk into his left shoulder.
The agent with the stomach run through had reached for the crossbow from his decapitated cohort, and shot the elf with a poisoned arrow then his head fell limp on the cobblestone.

“
Aaargghh! Bastard
coward
!”
t
he pain coursed through his left arm, followed by numbness and twinges of muscle. Kendari lunged forward with Shiver, feigning a thrust toward the man on his right. As the parries went out from the rapiers, he turned his elbow sharply and cut across the throat of the agent on his left and stepped behind him. Blood ran from the choking swordsman’s neck, gurgling and coughing out as he began to fall. He was pushed forward instead by the marked elf, then stepped on as a jumping platform as Kendari leapt off from behind him in the night sky. The remaining agent cut across the
airborne
Nadderi’s shin, barely cutting through the leather boot, then felt the hot blade withdraw from his chest.

Kendari landed and kept walking, knowing his flying lunge had gone straight through the heart. He heard the assassin drop to the ground and he sheathed Shiver and his pyramid pommeled sword. He turned to look down the a
lleyway to where the others had been
fighting the Agarian woman. He heard the sounds of combat from inside the old empty temple and began to walk toward the broken doorway.
The battle silenced, and Kendari felt dizzy and weak. He put his right hand on the poisoned projectile and pulled it free, dropp
ing it to the street as he
stumbled along the temple wall. The Nadderi elf saw blurs of dark shadows, and saw a haze of a stumbling man dressed in black with a black mask up to his eyes. He drew Shiver to match the rapier that his opponent had out before him. Circles of moonlight clouded Kendari’s vision, yet he waited for the man in the doorway to make a move toward him. The poison was coursing, Onjani leaf paste he assumed
by the blurred vision and spasming
, which meant that they were here to capture and not kill. The cursed elf knew it wou
ld put a normal man out for several days, so he tried to remain conscious and fight it with all he had.
It was not enough, his eyes darkened beyond that of the nightwashed alley, and Kendari fell to the street.

The White Spider agent had seen his fellows killed inside the temple, now saw his five other brothers dead at the end of the alleyway. He stared for a moment at the
unconscious
elf he knew as the deadly and wanted Kendari of Stillwood, and stared at the heat rippling from his longsword.
He thought of the bounty.
Fear and common sense took over in
the dimly lit and empty street, fear that she was coming out the door any moment.
He ran to his right toward the wharf district, hoping the mystical woman and the elven assassin would not find his trail in the vast metropolis of Harlaheim. He thought of how Mistress Florin would be most upset at losing eight men, especially in the middle of her political maneuvers in the castle courts. At the end of the street, the agent turned to look behind him. He saw the woman walk out of the temple, staring right at him with her blade still in hand. She looked down to the elf who was now laying on the ground, then back at him. He ran, not wanting anything to do with the woman, not one on one anyway.

Angeline sheathed her sword at her side, looked at the dead bodies in the street, then down to Kendari who was breathing, but not moving as he lay on the cobblestones. Her code and oath to her secret order would never allow killing a helpless creature for any reason, nor leaving one to die
when assistance could be offered. The maiden of the Knights Soujan felt her wounds still stinging from this abomination of an elf, and sensed the poison in his veins. She breathed deep and knelt down beside him, fighting the thoughts of ending his corrupt and unnatural life right here as an act of mercy to him and others. Angeline sheathed his heat emitting longsword, and drug him inside the
empty
temple by the arms. She sensed the magic from his boots, his bracers, his ring, a pendant, his cloak, and both his blades.

“Quite an assortment of enchanted valuables you have, cursed one. I wonder how many were given to you and how many were t
aken from those you have killed.
” s
he continued to pull the elf into the safety of the abandoned building. Heaving him up onto a pew, one of few that was still in one piece, Angeline Berren knelt beside the Nadderi elf and began to clear her mind to pray.

Exodus II:XI

Tower of Kalzarius, Harlaheim

Kalzarius awoke to silence all around him, only the slow rise of the sun in the west and the fading orbs of green and white moons to the east and north caught his attention. He saw the silhouette of Cilano standing off the balcony, still and unmoving, staff lowered and posture relaxed. The old master of the arcane rose from his bed and walked toward the edge of the nineteenth floor of his tower to see the latest advances of the siege that had been ongoing for six days and nights.
His anxiety was quickly relieved when he saw but a hundred soldiers posted
at all four gates of his walls
and safely back about a hundred feet. They were camped in tents save for a few nighttime wa
tchmen, as were the gray guards of his own
.

“They have withdrawn master, during the night, yet I feel the siege continues simply to keep us from getting involved in something greater that transpires within the city.” Cilano opened his eyes, sensing his teacher beside him and the
first
rays of the sun warming his face from high above the majestic courtyard.

“Have our men clear out their dead, organize them, and our students will levitate them over the walls to the west. We will know their intentions when the two hundred deceased are returned to them
, stone and otherwise
. If they attempt an attack, we remain at full defenses. If they do not, we may return our guards to the tower and solely rely on the glyphs and arcane protections against such a small force. Give the men their needed rest, and you as well.” Kalzarius concentrated and whispered
a few words in the arcane which
floated his darkwood staff to his hands.

“And what of the king, should we try and make contact?” Cilano relaxed, knowing that Kalzarius had taken control of the arcane wards and senses throughout the tower and surrounding grounds.

“No, let them come to us. In the meantime, we need to put out our spies in the city. Send the students in guises of cats, birds, rats and bats to L’Herrim Castle and the other keeps of the corrupt nobility. We will arm ourselves with the information of their plans before they come to us with various versions of it on paper. Tell them not to engage any danger or
persons, merely to listen throughout the day and into evening. We are still under siege and at war with our own rulers, keep that in mind.”

“I will go with them, for safety and precaution in case anything would happen.” Cilano took in a deep breath over the quiet Harlaheim morning.

“Are you sure you have the energy? You have been up for two days and nights, Cilano.” Kalzarius furrowed his brow trying
to
dissuade his right hand wizard against taking on such a task when weariness could play a vital flaw.

“I learned from the greatest and most powerful wizard on the continent, I am sure
master Kalzarius. Do not worry for me, it is I who worry leaving an old man as the only wizard to protect the tower from siege.” Cilano laughed and patted his mentor on the shoulder as he passed by to head below and summon the students.

“Bahh!
I have been more than merciful to these royal trespassers this time. In days past I would have engulfed the sky with giant bolts of flame and lightning storms that would have-“

“I know master, I know. I was here, remember?”

“Yes, yes, very true. Ahhh, well here we are again, the unknown about to be known and the wreakage of another siege to be repaired. Only what motive and what went on under our noses is left to be discovered. Good luck, and be safe.” Kalzarius tried to recall his dreams now, in peace and solitude as he heard the heavy door open and close with his pupil’s passage down. “Gwenneth Lazlette, what is that staf
f you now hold? I could feel it
s great power in my dreams, and I hope i
t is not what I think it is.” t
he old arcane master was glad to know that she and her companions were alive, and that they had met with Ansharr in the mountain. His dreams were never misleading or incorrect, and Kalzarius had seen Gwenne sleeping next to her friends and clutching a staff of great old power. He had also seen the arcane marks and runes glowing faintly on their own while she slep
t, as if it had been working its energies on
free will during the night. Kalzarius had heard and seen many a potent and cursed object of enchantment
before, but none that had a mind or will of their own that acted in secret. His concern was now not the mild siege around his tower, but for his former pupil
’s direction
and what she was carrying.
The old wizard stroked his gray and white beard and began to go through his vast memory of both the vision in his dream and his studies of ancient arcane staves. He smiled, knowing it could take days with all that he had learned and read over his long life.

“Ahhh, some
times to be old and wise has it
s drawbacks.” Kalzarius laughed
to himself as he struggled to recall the markings on the staff in his dreams and compare it to something from his waking memories.
His mind drifted to Ansharr, getting the feeling that it had been too long since they had spoken in closeness with one another.

LCMVXI
ILCMVXIILCMVXIILCMVX

The road west was small and unkempt at best, sometimes seeming nothing more than an old deer trail or long forgotten pilgrims path to nowhere worth the journey any longer. The marshes to the north held strange sounds and smells especially at night when they made camp. The open hills and forests to the west and south were illuminated by the rising sun and the view of Soujan Mountain had faded back to the east after two days of long marching. The village of Saint Tarumin, although holy and full of Aldane priests seeking seminary blessing and confirmation to begin their ordained lives, was avoided at the request of Lord Cristoff. He had stated that many knights belonging to the Order of Saint Tarumin would be there, and being seen at this
point was not worth the risk. Word could spread
with the best intentions
of holy knights or priests
if
he and they were seen returning from the east together
.
Cristoff was concerned of who would eventually hear of it.
Tired, in need of shelter and warm beds, and with but a days worth of food remaining; the group was ensured by the Lord of Saint Erinsburg that they would reach the safety of his castle and city by late afternoon.

“How mu
ch further Cristoff? My legs be
about numb and done in here.” Azenairk kept trudging the dirt path, keeping pace with the floating wizard and two armored men in front of him. He looked up at the rising sun and the horizon to the west, knowing Saberrak the gray and Lady Shinayne were scouting ahead of the rest of them
as usual
. Those two never seemed to tire or feel the weight of weariness from travel like the rest of them did.

“Perhaps four or five hours before we reach the farmsteads, midafternoon at the latest
, good priest.” t
he Lord of Saint Erinsburg was feeling the weight of his armor as well, and his age.

“Pity that your God does not give you the power to levitate, Zen, I feel perfectly rested.” Gwenneth chuckled as she floated behind the dwarf. She had been feeling the power of the staff coursing through her for hours making it easier to hold her arcane flight without any concentration.

“If Vundren wanted me off of the stable ground it would be so, wizard. He gives me all I nee
d when I need it, and I s’
pose he feels I be needing
some hiking instead of floating.” Zen Thalanaxe grumbled as he trodded along in his heavy steel armor.

“Well at least you know who God is, unlike poor James up there. He’s not sure if
a
God or a Goddess beckons him to knighthood at this point and his confused look is enough to i
nvoke pity in almost anyone.” s
he whispered to the dwarf, but not low enough for James Andellis to miss the insult at his current spiritual condition.

“I suppose to you, mighty wizard and daughte
r of the Lady of Vallakazz, that
is most amusing!” James stopped
in his tracks and whirled around at the black robed woman hovering a foot off of the earth. “At least I have spiritual quandaries to be confused over, unlike yourself who thinks of nothing but books and power.”

“It has served me well so far, knight. Do not forget that my studies brought down an entire Altestani warship and have slain far more of our enemies than your blade, God or no God.” Gwenne’s green eyes beamed into his with not a hint of fear or intimidation behind them.