Weapon of Blood (31 page)

The man just grinned at him.  “No we ain’t
the duke’s men, and you best put up those toothpicks of yours before I stick
’em where the sun don’t shine.”

“That sounds uncomfortable, but if you
really want to try…”  Tika lifted one of the staves until its tip hovered a
hand’s-breadth under the leader’s nose.  “I don’t think they’ll both fit up
your arse, though, so you might ask one of your friends if they’d like to—”

“Why you little…”  The man tried to knock
the staff aside with his blade, but Tika was already moving.

The young man planted the tip of his
second staff on the next step down and vaulted over the two men.  Landing in a
crouch, he brought both staves whistling around low behind him.  The leader had
quick enough reflexes to parry, but his partner did not, and the hardwood cracked
against his knee.

The instant Tika vaulted, the tips of the
two swords facing Ponce dipped, the attention of their wielders drawn to the
threat.  Ponce dropped into a roll and lashed out with a foot, sweeping the
legs of his nearest opponent out from under him.  He stood just as the man’s
backside met the cobblestones, and one of Tika’s two staves slapped into his
hand.  The twins turned back to back, both grinning like fiends.

“I don’t think these fellows are tax
collectors at all, Tika,” Ponce tapped the butt of his staff against the
cobblestones.

“Neither do I, Ponce.”  Tika tapped his
own staff.  “Did you have lunch?”

“Yes.  Lovely meal.”

“Did you have the chicken?  It was
delightful.”

“I had the lamb.  A delicious shank with
rice and beans.”

“Excellent!  Good nutrition is so
important, don’t you agree?”

“I do!”

How can they joke?
 Wiggen knew the twins enjoyed bantering during their
practice, but this was real. 
Gods help them if they don’t understand that
. 
Her hand fluttered to her scarred cheek. 
Gods help us all
!

The two young men flourished their
staves, and the hardwood shafts met to each side and over their
heads—clack-clack-clack—too fast for Wiggen to follow.

“I’m gonna break that stick over your
head, you bloody little peasant!”  The leader spat and nodded to his men, who
spaced themselves evenly around the twins.

“Driver,” Ponce said casually, “you may
want to move your coach.”

“Bloody right!”  The reins cracked, and
the coach lurched into motion.

As one, the twins struck.  Wiggen gasped;
the staves seemed to vanish they moved so fast.  But the four swordsmen, having
been deceived once, were ready.  Steel met wood, and wood parried steel in a
cadence faster than the horses’ hooves on stone as the coach rumbled away.  The
twins whirled around each other, one low, the other high, staves whistling
through the air.  Ponce spun under a sweeping blade stroke and lashed out a
foot to trip one opponent, while Tika’s staff met with another’s forearm hard
enough to crack bone, sending the man’s sword clashing to the ground.

The swordsmen, however, were obviously
not novices.  One raked his blade down the length of Tika’s staff to slash the
young man’s knuckles.  Another ignored a high feint and parried low against
Ponce’s sweeping foot.

Wiggen gasped as blood flecked the
cobblestones, her throat tightening with worry.  Tika and Ponce were no
strangers to fights, she knew, but she didn’t think street scuffles compared
with facing trained swordsmen.

“You all right, brother?” Tika asked,
whirling and rolling over his sibling’s bent shoulders.

“Sauce for the goose, brother!”  Ponce
took the opening presented by Tika’s roll to bring his staff up between the
legs of another opponent.  With an impact that sounded like a meat tenderizer
pounding steak, the swordsman crumpled.

The odds were now even, and Wiggen caught
her breath.  Though both Tika and Ponce had been injured, neither wound looked
serious and they had cut their number of foes in half.  She allowed herself a
brief smile.

A shadow fell from the eaves of the porch
to land right in front of her.

The man’s sudden appearance caught Wiggen
completely off guard.  Unlike the thugs attacking Tika and Ponce, he was
dressed in dark clothes, a loosely draped cloth concealing the lower half of
his face.  He drew forth a long, curved knife and a sap.  Fear surged up from
Wiggen’s stomach in a nauseating wave.

A little fear is good, but you can’t
let it paralyze you.

Lad’s lessons steadied her.  This was
what he had always feared, but this was also what he’d prepared them for.  She
clutched the dagger beneath her apron so tightly that the edge of her wedding
ring cut into her finger, and thought,
Please…please let this work.

Her attacker strode forward, sap raised
to strike, dagger poised…and stopped barely a foot away.  His eyes widened with
confusion, then panic, as if a puppet master had just pulled his strings the
wrong way.

Wiggen jerked the dagger free from its
sheath and thrust it forward with all her strength.

Her assailant’s panic transformed to
shock.  A ragged wheeze escaped his cloth-covered mouth, and his eyes rolled
up.

Warmth flooded over Wiggen’s hand,
jolting her back to sensibility.  Looking down, she saw the dagger’s guard
pressed against her attacker’s stomach just below the sternum, the blade angled
up, just as Lad had taught her.  The hilt twitched with the last beat of the
man’s heart.  He slid off the blade and crumpled the porch.  Wiggen stood
staring at the blood-drenched dagger still tight in her grip.

“Oh, gods,” she mumbled, horrified at
what she had done.  She wanted to throw the bloody weapon away, but she knew
she had to keep it.  She had to do as Lad had taught her.
 Be calm.  Think. 
Be ready!

A quick glance to the courtyard, however,
and her panic faded to relief.  Ponce and Tika stood their ground, bloodied but
hale, as the thugs retreated through the gate.  Only one was uninjured, the
other three hobbled as fast as their wounds allowed.  Wiggen relaxed; it was
over.

“Forbish!”

The blood-curdling scream brought her
around so fast that blood from the dagger in her hand flicked in an arc across
the front door.  The common room was empty save for Josie, who stood by the
kitchen door, her face white as a sheet.

“Father!”  Wiggen dashed to the kitchen,
past her stunned stepmother.  The kitchen door stood open, the frame
splintered.  Forbish lay on the floor, blood pooling beneath a ragged gash on
his temple.  She dropped the dagger and went to him.

His breathing was steady.  The wound was
bleeding, but not badly.  Wiggen felt a brief flush of pride when she saw that
the cleaver in his hand was stained red.  Whoever had attacked him had received
a nasty cut in return.

“Josie, get me a damp cloth.”  Wiggen pressed
her apron to the gash to stem the flow of blood, careful not to push too hard
in case the skull beneath was cracked.  Forbish moaned, and his hand clenched
on the haft of his cleaver.

“Here!” Josie pressed a dripping
washcloth into Wiggen’s hand, and she applied it to his forehead.

Forbish’s eyes fluttered open.  “Wha—! 
Wiggen!  What?”  His hand came up with the cleaver.  “Look out, they…  Two of
them!”

“It’s all right, Father.  They’re gone. 
We fought them off.”

“Wiggen!”  Josie still sounded
hysterical.

“Josie, he’s going to be fine!”  Wiggen
turned to reassure her stepmother, but Josie wasn’t even standing behind her
any longer.  She stood in the taproom beside the crib.

“Wiggen, Lissa’s gone!”

The world darkened, shadows closing in
around her.  Lurching up, Wiggen stumbled to the taproom.   She reached the
crib and grabbed hold of the edge.  Inside there were only blankets and
pillows.  Lissa, her sweet baby girl, was gone.

The room spun around her, and her knees
gave way.  The shadows descended.  She couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think.  A
terrible, high-pitched keening reached her ears, and before she fell into the
smothering darkness, she realized it was her own voice.

Chapter
XX

R
ain fell in
sheets by the time Lad arrived at the gate to the
Tap and Kettle
.  His
headlong sprint through the city had left a trail of astonished onlookers in
his wake, but he didn’t care.  The only thing that mattered was getting home to
Wiggen and Lissa.  In the courtyard, he spied a broken sword lying on the
cobblestones, but it was the sight of Tika and Ponce manhandling a
canvas-wrapped bundle down the front steps that brought him up short.

“No…”  He stared at the bundle, his mind
reeling.  “No, it can’t be…”

Guilt surged through him. 
Why didn’t
we go?  Just leave, run away.
 The answer seemed ridiculous.
 Loyalty? 
To Mya?
   He lurched forward.

“Who?”

“One of
them
.”  Tika’s voice was
strange, as if he was about to be sick.

“Wiggen killed him.”  Ponce nodded to the
front door where Josie was scrubbing at bloodstains.  “You should go to her,
Lad.” 

“She’s not…” 
Injured, lying in a pool
of blood
…  He didn’t wait for an answer, but sprinted up the steps, past
Josie, and through the door.

The common room was empty, so he went
straight to the kitchen.  Inside he gaped at the incongruous scene.  Beside the
table strewn with flour and dough and bowls of fresh berries ready to be made
into pies, Forbish sat on a stool, his white apron stained red with the blood
that dripped down the side of his face.  Wiggen stood over him with a needle
and thread, finishing the last stitch in the gash.  She looked up, and Lad saw
her tear-streaked cheeks, but it was her eyes that paralyzed him.  Never had he
seen such pain and horror in their depths, even when a thug held a knife to her
throat.

“Lad!”  She dropped the needle and hurled
herself at him, her face contorted in agony.  Her arms encircled him, and she
clutched him tight with her bloody hands.  “Oh gods, Lad!”

He held her gently as she sobbed into his
shoulder, rocking her in his arms.  She was obviously in shock.  Ponce had said
that Wiggen killed a man.  Taking a life was a horrific experience;
she
had taught him that.  “Everything’s all right, Wiggen.  Everyone’s alive and
safe.”

“No!  It’s not!”  The cry from her throat
was more animal than human.  “They took her!”

Grasping her shoulders, he thrust Wiggen
to arm’s-length.  “
What
?”

“Lissa!  They took her!”

A visceral agony tore through Lad, worse
than any physical pain he had ever endured, as if someone had flayed open his
chest and wrenched out his heart.

“Who took her?  When?  How?”

“Lad!  You’re hurting me!”

Wiggen’s cry snapped his rising panic. 
Realizing that his grip was nearly tight enough to break bones, he released
her.

Think!  Reason is always better than
panic.  Calm your mind.  Remember!

Lad couldn’t recall which of his
instructors had taught him that lesson, but whoever it was had obviously never
had their child kidnapped.  How could he be calm when his soul was torn and
bleeding?  But he also recognized the truth in the lesson.  To get Lissa back,
he had to
think
.

Several deep breaths calmed his racing
heart and stilled his mind, and finally he managed to regain a measure of control.

“Tell me exactly what happened.”

“What happened?”  Wiggen stared at him as
if she didn’t understand, hysteria edging her voice.  “They came and took her. 
That’s what happened!”

“Wiggen.”  He grasped her shoulders
again, gently this time.  “Calm your mind.  I know it’s hard, but I have to
know every detail of what happened in order to get Lissa back.  Take a deep
breath and let your mind work.”

Wiggen took a deep, shuddering breath and
let it out slowly.

“Okay.  I was here in the kitchen…”

She told him everything she could
remember of the thugs in the courtyard, their fight with Tika and Ponce, the
man she killed.

“He just stood there,” she said in a
disbelieving tone, “like he’d hit a wall.  And I…  I killed him.  He couldn’t
touch me, just like you said, and I just did it.”

Lad looked into Wiggen’s face. 
It
worked
, he thought gratefully, and for now, that was enough.  Wiggen was
alive.  He lifted her hand and kissed the ring he had put on her finger on
their wedding day.  The lantern light glinted off of the gold-entwined circlet
of obsidian.

“Lad?” she said hesitantly.

“You did what you had to do, Wiggen.”  He
squeezed her hand gently.  “What happened next?”

“The thugs ran away, Josie yelled, and I
came in here.”

Lad released Wiggen and turned to his
father-in-law.  “And what happened here, Forbish?”

The innkeeper shook his head slowly as he
pressed a cloth to his wound.  “I bolted the door, but they broke through.  Two
of them rushed in.  I took a swipe at one,” he nodded to a bloody cleaver on
the meat block, “but the other whacked me upside the head, and everything went
dark.  Next thing, Wiggen’s here and…”

“What did they look like?”

“Dark clothing, with scarves or something
across their faces.”

“You didn’t send for the City Guard, did
you?”

“Hells, no!”  Forbish gave him an
exasperated look.  “Never helped before.  But who do you think they were, Lad?
”

“Assassins,” he said, squeezing Wiggen’s
hand.  They had never told Forbish about the ring she wore, and now wasn’t the
time to explain.  “It had to be guild assassins.”

“But why, Lad?  Why would they take her?”

There was still plenty of hysteria in
Wiggen’s voice, but there was something else, too.  She was angry, enraged that
someone would take their child.

Well, she’s not the only one
.

Never in his life had Lad wanted so badly
to kill someone.  He’d vowed not to kill for Mya, but this was his family, his
blood.  Whoever had taken Lissa, or more accurately, those who had ordered the
kidnapping, were on the top of that list.  He knew it must have been the other
masters.

All four of them?
he wondered. 
Mya?
  She had threatened him
when she found out he had the guildmaster’s ring.  Would she kidnap Lissa to
ensure that she got it back?  He thought of the look in her eyes after reading
the message of trouble at the inn.  There had been no guile there. 
Or could
this be another of her deceptions
?  The thought felt like a dagger in the
back.

“Lad?”

He looked up and gave Wiggen the obvious
answer.  “They took Lissa to control me.”

No more
, he thought murderously. 
No one controls me
!

“Lad!”  Josie burst into the kitchen, her
face flushed.  “Lad, there’s a woman out front asking for you.  She’s skinny,
red hair, dressed like a man.  Tika and Ponce are on the porch with their
sticks, but—”

“Mya!”  With a surge of rage, Lad shot
out of the kitchen.  Assassins had kidnapped his daughter, and one way or
another, it all centered on Mya.

Rain trickled down Mya’s neck as she
exchanged glares with the two dour young men blocking her way into the
Tap
and Kettle
.  They were so alike that she could only tell them apart by the
different bandages they wore.  They held their staves like they knew how to use
them, and the grim expressions on their faces brooked no argument.  She’d never
seen them before, but knew them from the descriptions in her Hunters’ reports:
the nephews, Tika and Ponce.

The front door slammed open, and Lad
strode out of the inn.  Relief washed over her at the sight of him; at least he
was all right.  His sodden clothes were plastered against his body, and his
face was flushed.

Gods, he’s beautiful
.  The thought emerging from the haze of her mental
fatigue startled Mya, though she couldn’t deny the truth of it.

“Mya!  What are
you
doing here?”

His question stabbed her, so accusative,
so angry.  Before she could reply, three others followed him out of the inn. 
Again, she knew who they were, though they had never met.  Fat Forbish the
innkeeper, and his wife and former barmaid, Josie, were unmistakable.  At the
sight of Lad’s scar-faced wife, Wiggen, Mya felt a gut-wrenching stab of
jealousy.

Forget her!  You’re here to help Lad
, she reminded herself.  She answered him as
dispassionately as she could.  “Why do you think I’m here, Lad?  I came to find
out what happened.”

“You mean you don’t
know
?”  Three
strides brought him down the dozen stairs to stand before her.  He was
trembling, and she could feel the heat radiating from his body.  “They took my
daughter
,
that’s what happened!”

Oh, dear gods
!  It was worse than Mya had expected, and he seemed
to be blaming her.  “Lad, I’m here to help.  Tell me what happened.”

“Why don’t you ask your Hunters, Mya?” 
His hazel eyes shot a pointed glance over her shoulder at the Hunter who had
just sidled up behind her.

Mya recognized the woman as the senior of
the two who were assigned to watch the inn.  “Shalla, report!”

“Yes, Miss Mya.  Four swordsmen entered
the courtyard through the gate, drew weapons, and started threatening the
stableboy. The thugs were apparently a distraction to draw them out,” she
pointed to the twins, “while three others tried to gain access to the inn.  I
saw one attempt the front door, but he was killed on the porch, by her.”  She
pointed to Wiggen.

Wiggen killed an assassin?
  The notion that the innkeeper’s daughter could kill
anything more dangerous than a dormouse struck Mya as ludicrous.

“Birdie was watching the back, and
reported that the other two smashed through the side door.  They came out about
a minute later, one injured, the other carrying a bundle.  They went up and
over the cow shed and the wall behind it.  I immediately sent Birdie to the
Cockerel
to get a message to you.”