by Dale Lucas
CHAPTER TWENTY–FIVE
All that Rem could think about in that moment was that something terrible was about to happen to Aarna, and that he was the only one present to thwart it.
But there was no apparent line of attack that he could work out in the moment. If he went for the man off to his right, the man holding Aarna could draw his own blade across her throat and kill her instantly. If he tried to engage the man holding Aarna, even to distract or bargain with him, the knifeman on the right could easily slide in and get the drop on Rem while Rem was so engaged. And here he stood, fallen into an on-guard stance, sword in hand, as useless in that moment as a bouquet of flowers.
The man on his right moved a little. Rem pivoted so that he now stood with each potential adversary before him, each only about forty-five degrees off his central line of vision. That slight movement froze the knifeman in his tracks. Satisfied, Rem kept his eyes on the man with his knife to Aarna’s throat and his hand over her mouth.
“You’re not a regular,” the man holding Aarna snarled. “So, who are you?”
“You wouldn’t believe I’m the pox inspector?” Rem asked.
To his surprise, the man holding Aarna smiled a little. “Funny boy. Talk,” he pressed his blade against Aarna’s throat, and Rem saw the first red glint of blood drawn, “or this one bleeds.”
Rem noted that the man on the right was closing in again. One step. Then another.
“Tell him to back off,” Rem said, suggesting him with his free hand but never moving his gaze. “You may have time to bleed her and this one may get one good stick in me, but I promise you, no matter what you do to her or me, I’ll take at least one of you down to the ghast pits with me. That’s a promise.”
“I’d like to see that,” the hostage taker said, his smile widening again—then he started to scream.
For a moment, Rem had no idea what was happening. Then blood started to seep wetly from between the man’s fingers, clamped as they were over Aarna’s mouth. She had managed to get her teeth around one of them and she was biting, hard. The man tried to yank his hand away, but the grip of her teeth was far too tight. Shaking, desperate to save his finger, the man’s knife hand drifted away from Aarna’s throat.
Rem was just about to plunge in and see if he could plant his sword point in the man’s arm—even a slight wound might get him to draw farther away from her—but already he saw the killer on his right lunging for a strike. The man’s momentum carried him quickly, and Rem knew that he was already far inside the reach of his blade. But that didn’t mean that Rem was entirely helpless. He swung backhand, toward his oncoming attacker, and the heavy steel pommel of his blade connected hard with the man’s right temple, knocking him sideward. The point of the would-be killer’s stabbing blade nicked Rem’s right shoulder blade, but his strike was solid. The man groaned and toppled, crumpling toward the floor. Rem let his backhand strike carry him around in a full circle and he came back to where he started, now facing Aarna and the man that threatened her.
Aarna’s teeth were still dug deep into the man’s bloody finger. He had drawn away from her, still trying to yank free, but his knife was high and poised for a downward strike now. Rem could only think of one way to get Aarna safely away before the blade fell and likewise clear a path for him to make his own play to end their bloody little duel.
So, acting purely on instinct, desperate to save Aarna’s life, Rem lunged and kicked her square in the stomach.
With a loud whoof, Aarna’s teeth finally disengaged from the knifeman’s finger and she went tumbling backward, toward the open space in the wall that the two men had probably emerged from. The knifeman’s plunging blade sliced the air where she’d stood just a moment earlier as the man yanked his bleeding, finally-freed hand close to him. Before he could shift his stance or raise his blade to meet Rem’s charge, Rem already had him squarely in his sights. Before the fellow could defend himself, Rem straightened his arm, driving his sword blade before it with terrific force. The blade sliced right through the man’s middle, barely resisting the sharp point and the arm’s length of steel behind it. The knifeman stared down at the blade, a look of puzzlement and agony on his ruddy face. A mass of blood bloomed beneath his shirt, then came pouring forth down his middle and onto the plank floors of the chamber. He fell to his knees, skin already turning an ashen white. From the floor, he made one weak attempt at a swipe with his blade, but it came nowhere near Rem’s body.
Rem withdrew his blade from the man’s middle. Without hesitation—without remorse—he drove it in again, this time through the man’s heart. He nicked ribs on his way in. The blade buckled the slightest, for the barest of instants, then straightened and slid on. When it pierced the man’s heart, the knifeman stopped moving altogether, face frozen in an awful, almost comical mask of wonder and discomfort. Rem withdrew his blade and stared for a moment at the great glut of blood dripping from its tip and leading edges.
He looked to Aarna. She was just yanking herself out of the little alcove behind the secret wall panel, hands braced on the wall struts to either side of her. She had her would-be assassin’s blood all over the bottom half of her face. Rem moved to help her up.
“Aarna, please, forgive me—”
She reached one hand toward him, to accept his help and regain her feet—then screamed.
“Rem, look out!”
Rem turned. The other knifeman—the one he’d thought was suitably unconscious because of that hard knock he’d given him with his sword pommel—came flying toward him. Rem tried to get his sword between them, but it was too late. The man hit him and down they went. Rem’s sword flew from his hand.
The two of them hit the floor with stunning force, a tangle of arms and legs and curses. Desperate for advantage, Rem threw a bevy of punches—aimless, directionless—in the hopes of stunning his opponent or knocking him out cold. To his horror, his attacks seemed to be useless.
They rolled across the floor. Rem blocked the knife half a dozen times as its wielder tried to get in close to slide it in. In desperate snatches, Rem searched the nearby floor for his fallen sword, knowing that he could air the fellow out if only he could get his blade in hand, get back on his feet, and get a little distance from the bastard.
But at the moment, that would have to wait. They were too close, breathing in each other’s faces, spitting and gnashing and groaning as they grappled. Blood dripped from the man’s temple where the pommel of Rem’s sword had split the skin. And that damned knife in the intruder’s hands kept falling toward Rem—threatening his face, his exposed throat, his heaving chest. Time and again, Rem managed to deflect the blows and dodge the blade, but he wasn’t sure how long he could maintain his good fortune without some distinct advantage.
Rem tried to dismount, but the assassin held on and they tumbled sideward. Rem was underneath now, his attacker on top. The villain raised his knife for a powerful, killing blow. When he stabbed downward, however, Rem managed to catch his arm and deflect it, keeping that ugly, pointed blade from plunging right into his chest. Rem tried to use one knee or the other to get a clean shot at the assailant’s balls, but he couldn’t quite manage the right angle. Likewise, the assassin was aware that his jewels might be exposed and kept bending his body, left and right, to avoid the substratum attack. In all of their rolling, they ran into the edge of the secret panel in the wall, hard. Rem’s head took a mighty blow. He saw stars, but he kept struggling to hold the knife at bay, to somehow get himself back on top.
As Rem’s star-strewn vision cleared, he saw Aarna run forward, poised for a strike. She had something big in her hands: the central column of the chamber’s water pipe! The smoking hoses and nozzles hung from the great tin trunk like vines from the limb of a forest tree. Aarna lifted the unwieldy assembly and brought it crashing down on Rem’s adversary. Rem felt the force of the blow through the man’s strong, corded arms and writhing body. The water pipe bounced off his hunched shoulders. In the instant that followed, as th
e fellow bent forward and blinked, trying to maintain his composure atop Rem in the wake of such a fierce blow, Rem saw his opening. He drew back one fist and punched the rogue in the face. Once, twice, a third time for good measure. Spittle and blood fell down into Rem’s eyes. He was momentarily blinded.
But he felt the weight upon him relieved. Rem threw his whole body away from the wall, finally slipping out from beneath his would-be killer. When Rem blinked the blood and spittle away and looked, he saw the fellow scrambling on all fours for the shallow chamber beyond the secret panel. Rem’s first thought was that the scoundrel was fleeing … and that he couldn’t allow that to happen.
Rem threw himself onto his attacker, hands grasping at his belt and trousers and throwing him to the floor. Then Rem was up, ready to drive an elbow or a knee into the man’s back to immobilize him.
But Aarna beat him to it. She brought the body of the water pipe down again, right onto their adversary’s head. Rem heard a wet, sickening crunch, saw the man’s skull collapse a little under all that weight, and felt the man’s body give a convulsive shudder beneath him. This time, Aarna could not maintain a grip on the water pipe. It fell with a great clang and rolled across the floor. Aarna, dripping with sweat and tears, blood smeared on her face, body shaking from a sudden rush of fear and fury, stared at the man whose skull she’d just crushed. Rem did as well.
When the two of them were sure he wouldn’t rise again, Rem struggled to his feet and swept Aarna into his arms. He pushed her sweat-matted hair away from her face and tried to wipe off all the blood around her mouth with his sleeve. Aarna let him clean her up. Just as he seemed to have wiped all the blood away and was taking a moment to assess her, to make sure that she was not wounded or nicked, Aarna shoved him away.
“Enough,” she said. “I’m fine.”
“Are you?” Rem asked. “Are you certain?”
“After you kicked me like a stray dog? Certainly, boy. Peachy.”
“I’m terribly sorry about that,” Rem said, moving closer again.
Aarna stepped back, doubled over, and drank the air deeply. No matter how much she gulped, it seemed she could not get enough. Still, she held up one hand to keep Rem at a distance.
“I’m fine,” she wheezed between lungfuls. “Honestly. It was a fine gambit. Got me clear and surprised the sundry hells out of that one.” She indicated the man Rem had impaled, now lying in a spreading pool of his own blood on the floor.
“You’re sure you’re all right?” Rem asked. “I thought he cut you.”
“Just a nick,” she said, voice starting to sound almost normal again, neither so wavering nor so breathless. “Aemon’s bones, I wish that wine wasn’t spiked. I can still taste that foul bastard’s blood and filthy hands in my mouth …”
Rem snatched up his sword. First things first. They had to make sure they were truly safe. He peered into the dark spaces behind the wall where the secret panel had slid aside. No one seemed to be back there. Rem assumed that if these two men had backup, they had not called for it. What had brought them here? Pure chance? A quick look through a peephole and curiosity about why Aarna was left alone in the room?
No, that wasn’t it at all.
“Sundry hells,” he muttered. “I brought them. My knocking on the walls …”
“How’s that?” Aarna asked.
“I saw it in another room,” Rem said, disgusted with himself. “After the girls are drunk and unconscious, the men who’ve brought them knock on the walls—a coded knock—and that brings the likes of these two to snatch the girls and spirit them away. They must have heard me knocking when I was looking for hollow spaces. They must have known right away that someone was in here looking for a secret passage with no notion that anyone might be waiting behind the walls. If I hadn’t left you—”
“Quiet,” Aarna said. “We made a lot of noise in here. Someone might be coming from the main hall already.”
Rem’s eyes went wide. She was right. Gods of the Panoply—how could the two of them slip out of here if more hired hands arrived outside the chamber door? There were no windows, and there were probably more knifemen waiting in the maze of secret passages behind the walls.
Don’t panic, Rem thought. Deal with the situation. One problem at a time. Go and check the hall to see if anyone’s coming.
Rem hurried to the chamber door. He pressed his ear against it. To his great surprise, all he heard was a great and thunderous clamor—outside.
“What is it?” Aarna asked.
Rem urged her to be quiet with a silent gesture, then slowly opened the door. Through the crack, he heard the great row that seemed to drift up from the common room, down the stairs at the end of the hall. He peered into the hall and saw no one around, so he threw their door open wide and stepped out, all the caution having fled from him.
There was a commotion down the hall, beyond the stairs. It came from the common room. Patrons alternately screamed and cheered. Feet thumped across the wooden floor, tables and chairs scooted, clay cups fell and shattered. It was a cacophony of voices and noise, and amid it all, the vague clang of weapons: wood on steel, steel on steel, iron on wood.
A brawl, then—and by the sound, a big one. The bouncer at the head of the stairs was nowhere to be seen—probably down amid the tumult, trying to maintain order. Rem counted himself very lucky. He grabbed Aarna’s hand and yanked her out of the room.
They hurried up the corridor. When they reached the gallery rail that looked down into the common room, they saw the source of the furor. A great brawl had indeed broken out. Among the knots of adversaries at one another’s throats and the throngs of bystanders trying to clear the way and get to safer ground, the bouncers waded into the fray in an attempt to dispel the fight, or at the very least, get it under control.
At the center of the melee, Rem saw two unequal figures locked in combat.
One was a bearded Estavari bravo wrapped in a flowing cloak, sporting a sharp, rather malign-looking sword of exquisite make.
The other was a bald-headed four-foot-tall sculpture of thick muscle and bone armed with an iron maul and a broken chair leg.
Oh yes, Torval had made it inside … and already, someone was trying to kill him.
Rem drew his sword again. “Stay up here,” he said to Aarna, then went pounding down the stairs and thrust himself into the melee, eager to save the dwarf’s life and see just what sort of skills that greasy southern bravo had to offer with his blade.
Pressing through the surging crowd wasn’t easy. People hove this way and that, joining the fray or fleeing from it. At one point, one of the familiar bouncers saw Rem approaching Torval and the Estavari bravo and tried to head him off. Rem saw the bouncer’s approach, changed course slightly to put a knot of scrapping longshoremen between him and his would-be adversary, then struggled on, jostled by the fray surrounding him.
Torval saw Rem just before he arrived on the dwarf’s right, and tried to wave him off. “Forget about me!” Torval called above the din. “Get Aarna out of here!”
Sorry, Old Stump, Rem thought, I’ve come too far now to turn back. Besides, if I’ve learned anything tonight, it’s that Aarna can take care of herself—and me, for that matter.
He thrust himself right into the midst of Torval’s contest with the sword-wielding bravo, colliding with Torval, knocking him clear, and immediately taking his place in an on-guard stance, body narrowed, blade leveled.
Torval started to protest and charge back into the fight.
“You finally put a sword in my hand,” Rem snapped, without taking his eyes off his adversary, “so let me handle this!”
He sized up his opponent. He was Estavari, all right—olive skin, black, oiled hair, a well-trimmed beard. His clothes were common, but his face and bearing were noble—a strange combination, but not unheard-of, Rem supposed. Hadn’t everyone he’d met in Yenara recognized the same quality in him? More troubling, though, Rem recognized the fellow: it was the same Estavari bodyguard tha
t they had noted at the house of Kethren Dall, the one in the employ of the elf merchant, Mykaas Masarda.
Then Rem noticed another small detail as the Estavari prepared himself for their contest of blades: a long, thin cut—freshly scabbed—ran up the Estavari’s left bicep, matching precisely the wound Rem had given the mysterious assassin who had infiltrated Torval’s home in an attempt to kill them while they slept.
So, this bravo—this olive-skinned southerner with his regal sneer and his rough raiment—had already tried to kill them once that day.
By Masarda’s order? Or someone else’s? Or was the bravo the mastermind behind this whole, rotten kidnapping business?
Too many questions for the here and now. Presently, there was only one concern: crossing swords with the bastard and walking away with his life.
Rem felt the familiar mental calm and spring-loaded tautness of the expert fencer spread over him, the product of all his youthful training. Mind supple, body taut—that’s what he’d been taught in his youth. That’s what would keep him alive.
He hoped.
“So,” Rem said to the bravo, “ready for another round?”
“Your last,” the swordsman answered through a smirk.
Their blades flashed, and the duel began.
Rem didn’t open with his strongest moves. Instead, he tested his opponent, trying to get some sense of his style and capabilities. He feinted and thrust, parried and riposted, dared attacks with edge and with point, each carefully modulated and formulated to expose his opponent’s strengths and weaknesses.
The Estavari was very good. He parried every thrust with subtle movements, blocked Rem’s slashes, thrusts, and passes with practiced calm. He might be dressed as a common sellsword, but his blade work was fluid and elegant—clearly the product of a courtly education.
A strange, fleeting thought flashed through Rem’s brain, unbidden and dangerous, coming as it did in the midst of a life-and-death duel. What if he’s like me? Rem thought. What if this murderous, shifty, smirking bastard is nothing but a runaway child of privilege looking for a new start, like me?
