by Greg Curtis
Manx desperately threw himself to the side again, wondering how it was possible that the man could be so fast. But also suddenly realising that the others had scarcely moved as the two of them had fought. It wasn't that time had slowed for the others. It was that the two of them were moving at impossible speeds as they fought. So fast that the others couldn't keep up with them. How was he doing that?! Manx didn't know. All he did know was that the shadow itself seemed to help him. What it lacked in light it gained in vitality.
But it didn't matter how. Not as the killer was on him. All that mattered was that he didn't get sliced by that glowing black blade. And so Manx spent a desperate few heartbeats dodging and weaving as the assassin came at him with everything he had, blade against blade. Sparks flew as the blades touched, sweat started beading on his skin and his breath came in furious gasps, but Manx and the killer stood toe to toe and neither of them died. Manx did manage to slice the man's cheek open at one point though.
After that they both leapt back, and stood there, facing one another warily, breathing heavily, and wondering what to do next. They were well matched. In fact Manx didn't know how he had caught the man three times and not been caught himself.
“You should run,” he told the man, his voice little more than a gasp as he struggled to take in enough air. “I won't chase you.”
“Not if you're dead,” his would be killer answered him. Then he smiled and after that there was no more time for conversation.
The killer came at him again, raising his knife above his head and then somehow leaping impossibly high into the air. But that was a mistake. It would have killed anyone else, striking unexpectedly from above. But Manx simply wasn't surprised. And he knew the move and its counter. One step to the side, a shadow spin, and a forward rush while his blade flashed back into the man's shoulder even as he landed lightly on the ground.
This time the man let out a piercing cry as Manx' blade buried itself deep in his flesh, before he was sent flying away, while Manx continued his rush three or four more steps. Then he turned and saw the man already getting back to his feet.
But he was wounded. Badly wounded. His knife arm had a gash running from shoulder to elbow down which blood was flowing freely, and the back of his shoulder had a deep puncture wound in it turning the small of his back into a mass of redness. He was also favouring his other leg. And all the time he stood there, he was losing blood. For a moment Manx dared to believe he had the fight in hand.
His attacker didn't think so though. He simply swapped the black blade into his other hand and came at Manx again. And he was just as quick and deft with his other hand.
After that they returned to what they'd been doing before, dancing with their shadows, trying desperately to get behind one another so they could bury their knives in each other's backs. That was the entire fight. But thankfully it was one that was in Manx' favour. He was breathing hard and desperately trying to stay out of the way of that blade, but his enemy was doing the same and losing blood as well. In fact it was spilling out over the grass, turning it red. And he was slowing because of it.
So Manx just stayed out of his way and let the man weaken. The more blood he lost the slower he got. And eventually that gave him the opening he wanted.
The killer tried another feint, intending to put his blade deep in Manx' belly, but overreached a tiny amount and Manx buried his blade in the man's forearm almost without thinking.
After that the battle was his. He knew that as he tore his blade free and leapt back. He didn't know how it was his. But he knew his enemy no longer had a knife arm he could use. In fact he no longer had a knife at all. The blade was gone somewhere. Had he dropped it? Manx didn't remember seeing that. But he didn't care. The killer was unarmed.
For long moments after that the two of them stood there, facing one another and gasping for breath while the shadows flowed around them. And neither of them knew what to do or say. They just stood and stared. But all the while the assassin's blood pooled around his feet. He was bleeding very badly.
Then the man swore at him. “You'll die for this! Bastard!”
But his threat was short lived. Even as he tensed, preparing to attack again, something silver struck the killer. A wave of it that came from out of nowhere, picked him up off the ground, and tossed him high up into the air, screaming in surprise. A moment later he fell to the grass, landed awkwardly, and then just lay there as the shadows surrounding him vanished. He wasn't a threat any longer. Manx was sure that he'd heard the sound of bones snapping when he'd hit the ground.
Meanwhile Danvers was standing there, arms outstretched, his decrepit long coat flapping around in a wind that wasn't there, looking every inch the sorcerer he was.
“Not bad for an old glider jockey,” he announced proudly to the world.
Manx didn't understand much about the spell-casters. He didn't actually know what a glider was either save that it was some sort of transport and the sorcerer had used to drive one, ferrying people around the cities for coin. And he certainly didn't understand why the sorcerer couldn't find some more reputable clothes to wear. His long coat flapped open because the buttons had come off and never been repaired. And the ends of his trousers were ragged because they'd never been tailored to fit and so had dragged on the ground. And his long nearly white beard hung down to his belly, because he'd never shaved it. But at least the man looked like what he imagined a wizard should look. Or a sorcerer which as far as he was concerned was much the same thing.
Was the assassin dead? Manx didn't know. But he did know as he let the shadow leave him as well and released his own knife, that the battle was over. He'd won. That didn't make a lot of sense to him. He was no fighter. He was a librarian! And all of those strange fighting moves and the magic he'd used, he'd never even known he could do. Even the knife, he belatedly realised, hadn't been a real knife. He hadn't been carrying one. It too was some sort of magic.
“Assassin,” he finally told the others as he pointed at the fallen man. But he didn't really have the breath to speak and the others surely knew that anyway. That was why they were all standing back, staring.
“Are you alright?” Larissa came up to him after a few moments.
“I'm fine,” Manx replied. And then he thought for a moment and realised that he really was fine. Not just uninjured, but for the first time in longer than he could remember he actually felt somehow well. Fit and strong as he couldn't ever remember feeling before. How?
Obviously whatever the wizard had done to free him from his blood curse had worked. But none of that mattered. What mattered was that he was alive. As were the rest. And that the world had returned to normal again. Because he could hear people talking all around him, trying to work out what had happened. Not just Adern and the other. For a time he had been living in a world of silence with little noise getting through. Now the world had returned to life.
The others hadn't seen the battle. Not clearly. Between the shadows and the speed they'd been fighting at, that was to be expected, he supposed. But why had it been so quiet while they'd been fighting, he wondered?
Eventually he decided that he didn't care. This wasn't the time for questions. He was just glad to be alive. And he realised one more thing. That he was hurting. The pain arrived from out of nowhere without warning. His body ached from head to foot. His muscles had been worked out in a way they never had been before. And so he hobbled with all the strength he had left, back to his seat beside Adern.
Meanwhile Danvers wrapped the fallen man up in blue bindings as he lay on the grass. Obviously if he had to do that, Manx thought, he couldn't be dead. That he was actually glad of. He didn't know who the man was, but he didn't want a death on his soul. Not even the death of an assassin.
“You alright?” Adern asked him. “You look sore.”
“Just tired,” Manx answered him as he watched the sorcerer standing over their attackers prone body, casting spells. “I've never done any of that before.”
“I believe you. That was impressive. We couldn't see you. Not well. You kept appearing and disappearing. Blurring and fading in front of us. Moving too fast to see. And for a time we didn't know what was happening. Not until we realised that there was another man doing the same. That there were two of you.”
“He came to kill us. Wrapped in shadow. He went for Danvers, first. But I could see him. So he tried to kill me.”
“He's probably taken the Silver Order's coin,” Adern replied. “They've realised their soldiers, bought and paid for as they are, aren't good enough.”
“He's a Smythe,” Manx told him.
“Same family. Same blood.” Adern smiled and unexpectedly clapped him on the back. “I told you the Smythes were unloved. He's part of the reason why.”
Manx knew that. He'd read about it in the journals. That some of his family had become assassins. And while thieves were surely hated and despised. Assassins were feared. But he hadn't expected to see any of these people.
“But look at it this way, assassins are highly paid. At least the ones from your family. You could be rich when this is over!” Adern smiled easily at him. “Of course we'd have to lock you up! But you could be the richest man in the gaol!”
Manx stared at him, knowing Adern was joking. He liked to fool around, perhaps because he was young. But that didn't bother him. What did was that he wasn't completely sure which part was the joke. That he could become an assassin? Or that they would lock him away? Some days he just didn't understand these people.
“We should finish this,” he abruptly announced.
Oddly, that was the one thing he was suddenly sure of. But not for any of the reasons the others had given him. Instead for one very simple reason. The more prisons they liberated, the less reason the Silver Order would have to send their assassins after them. And he didn't want to face another one. The next time he might not be lucky enough to walk away from the fight.
And it unexpectedly occurred to him, that the killer had come for him. He might have struck at the sorcerer first, because Danvers was the most dangerous. Or maybe he was just the nearest. But in the end Manx knew that he was the one who was in the greatest danger. The others could all be replaced if the need arose. But he was the only Smythe they had. If the Court's spies were any good at all they had to know that he was the one they needed to stop.
He shook his head self-pityingly. The damned cat was right! This was no business for a librarian to be involved in! But still he returned to work. Manx knew it was his best protection. Sooner or later there would be so many spell-casters out in the world, that stopping him would no longer matter to the Silver Order. He was committed to this path!
Chapter Twenty Two
The city gaol was not a nice place to be. But then Sorsha imagined, it wasn't meant to be. And at least it was clean. It was also well lit and properly aired out, which surprised her. Gaols hadn't been like that in her day. Dungeons had truly been dungeons. But this was something new.
The twelve foot high corridors of solid concrete she was walking down didn't have roofs. They had bars instead. Which meant that the sunlight and the rain both poured straight down onto the stone floor. That was why there were drainage channels in the floor. But no one was escaping through the roof. The bars above her head weren't just twelve feet above the floor meaning that no one could reach them, they were also inch thick steel pressed into the concrete. Even if the prisoners could escape their cells and get into the corridors, they weren't getting through them.
It was designed to hold those with magic as well. The concrete was filled with lodestone and the bars made of cold steel. Spells just fizzled here. That puzzled her a little. If there was no magic in this new world, why did they need to do that? But she guessed the Silver Order had had some say in the design of the gaol. And they'd been thorough – just in case.
The gaol was also larger than she'd expected. But then Winstone was not a town. It was a city of over a million people. It had to cope with a lot of prisoners. Now of course, those prisoners were gone. Dead or fled – she didn't know which. No one seemed to be able to tell her. But somewhere in the confusion they'd escaped or been released and the doors were wide open. Maybe they'd been killed, though if that was the case she had to wonder where the bodies were. The cells were just empty. Save of course for one.
As she walked the long, quiet corridors that led to the woman's cell, Sorsha had to wonder if she would learn anything more from her than she had before. She doubted it. But every day or so she made this walk, to see the woman. Hoping that finally Jayla Marshendale would tell her something useful. But thus far the only thing the woman had given her was long periods of silence interspersed with insults and yelling. Today she imagined, would be the same. After eight visits here, she knew better than to hope for more.
But she felt it was her duty to visit the woman and ask. And perhaps too it brought her a little cheer to see her trapped on the other side of those heavy steel bars and know she couldn't escape.
“So, how's our little princess today?” she called out as she approached the cell. “Enjoying life in the castle?” Sorsha mocked the woman's situation. It was petty and childish perhaps, but then the woman had stabbed her and she still hurt a little from that. She had a right to be petty.
“My blade didn't strike deep enough,” the prisoner growled at her.
“It was deep enough for me!” Sorsha reached the cell and stopped and stood in front of the wall of steel bars facing the woman who'd tried to murder her. And she couldn't help but notice that the woman wasn't looking quite as beautiful and filled with life as she had. She looked tired. Prison life it seemed, didn't agree with her.
“So anything to say?”
“That you're one ugly bitch!” The prisoner spat at her, but her spittle couldn't quite reach her. Sorsha was standing well back from the bars. “You wouldn't make any coin as a woman of the night!”
“Well, I've got some news for you doxy. Another of your dimensional prisons has been emptied out. And guess what? You're going to have some company in here soon. One of your assassins tried to kill our people. He failed and he's on his way here as we speak. Bound tight and being hauled here on a steam wagon. We'll probably put him in another wing, but you might be able to hear one another if you shout really loudly!”
“My people should have killed you all!” Jayla Marshendale tried spitting at her again, but once more her spittle fell short.
“Well, they certainly tried,” Sorsha commented darkly. “And now what remains of your black hearted family is paying for that. But I don't think there's many left. A dozen or two maybe, in various graveyards and battlefields across the realm. Whatever's left when we're finished destroying them we'll bring here so you can reminisce about old, times while you grow old and die together. Talk about how you used to be strong – on stolen magic.”
“It's our magic!” Jayla Marshendale snapped.
“If it was yours, it wouldn't have killed you. And you wouldn't have had to have stolen it.” Sorsha thought she should point that out. The damned woman kept repeating her lies every time she saw her but eventually the truth would sink in.
“But good news, and I know you'll be pleased about this,” Sorsha continued, mocking the woman. “We've found a partial cure to what you did to us. We're disenchanting the weapons you crafted from our stolen magic. Letting it return to our people. It's not a complete cure, but it's helping.” And it actually was. Maybe it was only a fraction, but already she felt a little stronger. The others did too. Of course even if they disenchanted every weapon and piece of armour that had been crafted with their stolen magic, it wouldn't replace all that had been lost. A lot of the magic had been used up over the centuries. But it helped.
“I hope you choke on it!”
“And I hope you and what remains of your entire worthless family grow old and die in misery in here.” Sorsha smiled at her. “And then the demons of the underworld sup on your bones for eternity.”
“You
first!” Jayla spat at her again.
“Not likely. Every city we retake, we meet less and less resistance. There aren't many of the Silver Order left and those we encounter fall quickly. Many run away. Your mercenaries run away. And your assassin – we were surprised you had a Smythe with you – was no match for ours.”
“You don't have –.” The prisoner paused for a moment, thinking. “You mean the librarian?” The woman stared at Sorsha in surprise. “He can fight?”
“Very handily as it turns out. You can ask your fellow prisoner when he arrives. Maxwell Smythe defeated him with ease. Cut him to pieces.”
Had she said something important, Sorsha wondered? She was here hoping for anything that might prove useful to spill from the woman's lips. But that had just been mockery. Done to intimidate and upset. But as she saw the look in the woman's face, Sorsha saw more than just surprise and hatred there. She saw something else. Fear maybe?
“I knew it! That pathetic little muck spouting bastard has help!”
