“Faster than the Dragon.” Loch came in low, caught his block, and aimed a blow at his head with the stick-sheath. He caught it with the dagger, hooked the blade behind the sheath, and tore it from her grasp, and she came up with a high little cut as she fell back, her blade catching his upper arm and leaving a thin line of blood across his cheek. “Though you didn’t kill him with the silver dagger we found in the study.”
He touched fingers to the cut on his face and smiled grimly. “I weakened him enough to capture, as the ancients requested. They wanted him, for some reason.” Now with two weapons to her one, he came in hard, forcing her to retreat as quickly as she could in the waist-deep water. “You seem to have thought of everything.”
“Almost everything.” Loch swept her blade back and forth in an uneven rhythm, hiding the timing of her moves, and Irrethelathlialann ducked down so that only his head showed above the water and lunged forward like a leaping dolphin. Loch guessed at where his blade was, missed, and felt pain bite into her lower leg. “Still not sure why you sold me and the Dragon out for the ancients.”
He lunged in again. This time she came down hard and sidestepped as best she could in the water. She caught the block, but it left her open, and his dagger flashed up out of the water, nicking her side. “Our people for them, Isafesira. They get the Dragon and you as good faith, and they agree to leave the Elflands alone.”
“You know they won’t leave you alone forever.” Loch saw him coming in again and chopped at his head. She took another cut on the leg, but her blade bit into his shoulder, and he grimaced as the blood spilled from the deep gash.
“I don’t need forever,” he said. “I have people making rings based on the same design as the paladin bands. Cheaper, easier to manufacture. If I get a year, I’ll have them ready, and the ancients can have all you humans. They won’t need us.” He tucked his dagger into his belt, then switched his rapier to his left hand.
“It’s not about need, Ethel!” Loch parried his next thrust, then gave ground as he slashed forward, as adept with his left hand as his right. “They’ll still turn on you!” Her back bumped into a platform, and she tried to slide to the side, but Irrethelathlialann moved to keep her pinned to the wall.
“And by the time they do, I’ll have my own attack ready.” He smiled, his blade raised and ready. “A good strategist always knows how to wait for the proper . . . time.”
A sudden gushing waterfall crashed down upon Loch, dousing her in cold water and leaving her blind.
In that moment, Irrethelathlialann lunged, his blade spearing through the spray of the waterfall.
He hit empty air, and Loch’s blade slid into his chest from the side.
“Time and place, Ethel,” Loch said, drenched but smiling as the elf grunted, staggered, and then fell forward onto the platform, his rapier falling from suddenly nerveless fingers. “You fight me in the garden I grew up in, you’d better expect me to be used to the water clock splashing down every half hour.”
She waded over to reclaim her stick-sheath, slid her blade back in, and climbed out onto the platform. Her leg and arm hurt, with cuts added to the bruises, but she still had work to do.
From atop the platform, she began looking for her sister’s crystal airship.
Kail was in the captain’s cabin looking grimly at Thelenea’s body when the others arrived.
“What happened?” Dairy asked. He looked shaky, and Icy was helping him walk.
“Nothing good.” Kail grimaced. “We ran into Ghylspwr and two nobles with paladin bands out on the estate. Loch’s still inside. You?”
“The puppeteer had a band as well,” Icy said. “In retrospect, it is an obvious way for the ancients to maintain control over what the public learns. The trackers were also present.”
“We tore the ogre’s throat out,” Ululenia said, smiling a not-very-nice smile as she helped a gray-faced and red-eyed Tern sit down.
“That’s one down. Where’s Hessler?” Kail asked, and when Tern didn’t move and Ululenia and Icy and Dairy all looked away sadly, Kail grimaced. “Damn. I’m sorry.”
Desidora came into the cabin. “The rest of the crew is dead too. Clean cuts. I can raise them as zombies to tell us who did it, but I’d rather not unless—” She broke off as she saw Tern. “Oh, honey.” She stepped forward and put her arms around Tern, who leaned into her and grabbed Desidora’s shoulder like a drowning woman grabbing at a branch.
Kail pretended not to hear the noises Tern was making. Instead, he quietly said, “I can’t fly a treeship. Ululenia?”
“No.”
“We cannot stay here,” Icy said. “They are aware of us, and can bring reinforcements we lack.”
“Where’s Loch?” Dairy asked.
“She’ll be here.” Kail grimaced. “And if she isn’t, Ululenia knows these woods.”
“I would rather not stay,” Ululenia said sharply.
“Yeah, me neither,” Kail said, glaring, “and if you’ve got a better idea, hit me.”
A chime sounded outside, and Kail and the others looked through the doorway curiously, then came outside.
A wedge of black crystal shimmered into view as it settled to the ground beside the treeship. It had no balloon. Compared to an airship, it was a knife in a world full of pillows.
One of the crystal panes pivoted and slid down, forming a gangplank, and Loch stepped out.
“Told you she’d be here,” Kail said.
“We’ve got about ten minutes before they find us,” Loch called out. “Let’s move.”
Seventeen
WESTTEICH CAME BACK to his senses on a small couch in one of the Lochenville manor’s many sitting rooms.
“Your people made it clear that in exchange for my cooperation, my estate and the surrounding town would be left unharmed,” Baroness Naria de Lochenville was saying.
“And I hear that, I absolutely hear what you’re saying.” The voice belonged to Mister Slant. Westteich wondered how long he had been out. Slant hadn’t been here. “And you absolutely cooperated fully here, nobody is doubting that.”
“I have dead guards,” Naria went on, “and I have injured peasants, and I have a sister who now knows that I am working with you and may come after me again, and no,” she said as Slant opened his mouth, “posting a guard is not going to help me, and you and I both know that none of your people are going to want to ride a body stuck with this.” She gestured at the crystal lenses that covered her scarred face. “I want what is best for my people and for the Republic, including the ancients, and in the spirit of that desire, I am giving you a chance to make this right.”
“Again, I absolutely hear what you’re saying,” Mister Slant assured her, “and you can be certain that we are taking this quite seriously.”
“Yes, definitely,” Westteich added, pushing himself back to his feet. Naria and Slant looked at him. “While it is embarrassing that a room full of paladins could not manage to apprehend Loch, we are committed to making this right.”
Slant blinked, then nodded, “Indeed, yes. Exactly. Would you be interested in complimentary tickets to the Festival of Excellence?” At Naria’s raised eyebrow, Slant added, “It is one of the foremost events of the year, and—”
“I have an invitation,” Naria said. “My family was close friends with Archvoyant Cevirt. What I would be interested in is tax-protected status for the next ten years and a paladin band with no ancient soul inside it.” She tapped her lenses. “And believe me, I will know if there’s one in there, and while I can’t guarantee what these lenses would do if it tried to control me, I suspect it would be unpleasant for both of us.”
Slant put a hand to his chin. “Yes, yes, I can imagine. Now while I doubt it would heal your, ah, previous injuries, and targeting the energy pulse would be difficult for you yourself—”
“I will survive, Mister Slant.” Naria smiled, a beautiful smile that lit up her face and made her look delicate and wise at the same time. “I always survive. All the
most powerful people in the Republic are becoming paladins, and I am nothing if not fashionable.”
“Allow me to send some messages,” Mister Slant said, smiling delightedly.
“And while you’re doing so,” Westteich said, nodding to Naria and Slant, “put me on that list. If there’s an expectation that I’m to be involved in combat despite your people’s assurances that I was here strictly to observe and monitor, I think it only fair that I have the ability to take care of myself.”
“Oh, no call will be necessary for you, Lord Westteich,” Mister Slant said, and gestured to a table where a paladin band lay on a velvet cushion.
“Ah, wonderful!” Westteich moved over and looked down at his new weapon. “You already had one without the soul of an ancient inside.”
A delicate hand clamped down on the back of Westteich’s neck. “Not precisely,” said Mister Slant.
The inside of Loch’s sister’s airship was glossy black, enclosed like a treeship but all crystal and shine. It was built to hold five comfortably or eight with Loch standing, Bertram sleeping, and Ululenia perched on Dairy’s shoulder as a dove.
Tern sat in a chair by herself, as far away from everyone else as she could manage. She could still see the little market square, feel the stones under her feet.
“Hessler was a good man,” Loch said off in the distance, “and we will give him the mourning he deserves when we can. For now . . .”
Tern had just stood there. Like an idiot, just standing with the ogre’s shadow-touched hand over her heart, doing nothing.
Making Hessler save her, making him leave himself unguarded.
“. . . we supposed to create an illusion of the Glimmering Folk coming through the gate if we don’t have an illusionist?” Kail asked.
“Desidora, what if the crystals have memories of . . .” Loch said, with some other stuff, and Desidora nodded hesitantly.
He had looked so proud. Gods, he’d felt so guilty after she’d been shot on the last job. He had wanted to protect her, and hadn’t she just given him the chance, the stupid girl who was too clumsy to dance and too flighty to deal with the family business.
There must have been some kind of alchemy that would have stopped the troll. The right sort of silver or yvkefer or blessing or something. That wouldn’t have forced Tern to just stand there watching him shrink in the coils, the little sparkling motes of light all around him, wondering when he stopped being Hessler and started being Hessler’s corpse.
“. . . need to split up on the ground,” Loch said. “Kail and I will enter as we discussed. We need alternatives to get Tern into . . .”
She hadn’t been able to see his eyes. She’d just stood there. Dairy had yelled, and the paladin puppeteer had hit the ground, he’d been fighting, he’d been too far away.
“With Ululenia’s help, I can get Tern into the processing chamber,” Icy said. “Ropes down the side of the mountain could—”
“Where were you?” It came out louder than Tern had meant. She’d thought her throat would be dry and it would come out hoarse, but it piped up and bounced off the planed crystal walls of the black ship, and the echoes seemed to grow louder instead of quieter, until the whole room was silent.
“I was down, Tern, I am sorry.” Icy stood and moved toward her.
“No. You were back up after Dairy came in to help you. You were there.”
“Tern—” Loch started.
“You were there, you could have helped him!”
“Miss Tern,” Dairy said softly, “I know it hurts—”
“Like hell you do. Your Dragon isn’t dead, right?” Tern’s voice was getting sharper and louder, and she couldn’t stop it. “You’re so sure that the guy you love is alive, but I watched mine die, and it wasn’t an illusion, because he would have sent a message! He would have done his whisper trick in my ear! He would done something,” she said, and her voice caught, “but he didn’t, and so I don’t get to lie to myself that he’ll be back. Sucks to be me.”
Dairy stepped back and ducked his head. Ululenia, still perched on his shoulder, leaned against him. Tern didn’t care.
“I was down,” Icy said.
Something caught in Tern’s throat, and she swallowed it down, ignoring the burn. “You were down because you didn’t fight back. The puppeteer beat you, and it’s not because you couldn’t take him, Unstoppable Deferential Fist.” Her eyes were burning now, and Desidora started to get up, and Tern stopped her with a look. “You could have saved him, but you didn’t.”
Icy sat back down.
“I was the master of the Order of the Still Valley,” he said. “I was young, but my master had died fighting the Republic, and I had taken his place. It was after that war, before the one Loch and Kail served in. I remembered my master proudly, and I led the temple where we trained with fire in my heart. I was a very, very good warrior.
“At this time, the Republic airships performed flight exercises near the border. Imperial airships performed in parallel. Sometimes they fired the flamecannons near one another. The shots were meant as warnings, never intended to strike the other airships. In this, they were successful.”
Icy shut his eyes. “But they did, in fact, strike a small village near the border, unmarked on the maps. The Imperial citizens who lived there had been told it would be safer to leave, but offered no assistance and given no new land, they had stayed. The fire killed several of them. My wife, whom I loved. My children, whom I had not spent enough time with, because I was too busy proving myself a worthy successor to my master.”
He looked at Tern now. “I took my students, the Order of the Still Valley, across the Republic border. We entered Fort Guyer, where the airship that had fired was docked. It was not difficult. You have seen what I can do. Your soldiers were not ready for us.” His gaze moved to Loch and Kail. “We killed everyone who wore a uniform.”
“The Red Trail Massacre,” Loch said.
“We never heard about the fire,” Kail said.
“I am unsurprised that the Republic ignored that aspect of the story.” Icy bowed his head. “I told my students that it was justice, not murder, that we were better, because we had not killed civilians. Such justifications rang increasingly hollow as the Republic and the Empire veered toward war as a result of our actions.
“I could have stayed, held true to my anger. The Empire would have either gone to war or handed me over as a criminal.” He swallowed. “My students would have been handed over as well, however, and when I saw that potential . . . The two countries did not wish to go to war. Neither was ready at that time. Leaving the Order allowed for assurances that quiet corrections had been made.”
Tern swallowed, nodded, wiped at her eyes. “And coming here? Swearing your oath?”
Icy met her gaze again. “I wished to see the people whose soldiers I had murdered. I thought I could atone.” He started to speak, stopped, and when he did again, his voice caught. “I was down, Tern. I did not want to be a murderer again, and I did not fight, and so I fell. I could not have saved him.” He reached out slowly with one hand. “Neither could you.”
She said nothing, but she took the hand and held it tight while hot tears slid down her face again in the silent ship.
“Pathetic,” Mister Skinner said as he held his paladin band over the ogre’s throat. “Pitiful. I should give her claws or blood that erupts into flame when she bleeds. Perhaps then you lot might be useful.”
They were in the woods at the edge of the town, protected by other paladins, standard midlevel men who did the work that people like Mister Skinner didn’t have time for. The scorpion was unharmed, while the troll moaned softly, her burned skin peeling off in hunks.
“Arikayurichi gave you this chance to redeem your cursed bloodline,” Mister Skinner said, shaking his head, “and you waste it with this weakness.”
“Effort,” the scorpion said. “Unprepared.”
“Weak,” Skinner said. “You could have used your poison. The troll could have
finished off the little alchemist.”
“Burning,” the scorpion said. “Injured.”
Mister Skinner brought his band close to the ogre’s skin, and the throat pulled taut. For a moment, it looked as though it might heal. Then a few little crystals bubbled out from the skin, tearing the wound even wider. With a little smile, Mister Skinner plucked the crystals free, wiping the blood from his pants as the ogre shuddered and then went still.
“Poor little thing,” Mister Skinner said, and turned to the troll. “Now, you, you, you, what to do with you.”
The troll said nothing.
“Smart girl.” Mister Skinner brought his band close to her, and the troll’s flesh took on a glossy sheen, like the glint of sunlight on metal. “There you go. Fireproof now. The burning feeling should fade in a moment as well.”
“Thank you.” She sat up and pulled herself into her human shape.
Or at least tried to.
“Oh yes, the skin doesn’t catch the way it used to,” Mister Skinner added as the troll’s upper body flopped over, slithering bonelessly to the ground. “The price of your new fire immunity. Shouldn’t stop you from tracking down your targets, but you won’t be impersonating a person anytime soon.”
“No,” she said, her loose arms flopping and jerking like a pile of snakes. Her voice was strange. Mister Skinner realized she was trying to cry, but her tear ducts didn’t work. “Please.”
“You want to be a pretty elf?” Mister Skinner asked. “Or a nice sturdy dwarf, or even a human, like your people were before the Glimmering Folk perverted you into the horrible beasts you are now?” He held up his paladin band. “Get your targets.”
He left the trackers to recover and entered the Lochenville estate. He’d been told there was one more for him to deal with.
The elf had dragged himself up onto a platform in the water garden. Mister Skinner sniffed disdainfully at the dead fish as he passed the paladins guarding him.
The Paladin Caper Page 26
