by Jason Jones
“I do not want to kill you, Dasius.” Aelaine stated, preparing for what he was about to summon.
“Tersuun!” The orb spun and swirled through the room in a confusing pattern, growing as large as a boulder and veering toward Aelaine. The orange flaming burst went right through the wall next to the broken windows, exploding in flame and stone. Dasius smiled for a moment, and then turned to his right, hearing arcane dialect whispered in that direction. He saw her materialize into solid form again, having just vanished from one spot to another right before the collision that should have been her demise. “The feeling is not mutual, Aelaine!”
“Orhintian tinhiras!” She waved her hand and squeezed her fist shut while pointing at the ground. Black electric shadows pulled from real shadow and formed a writhing mass of crackling serpents that grew closer to the turncoat wizard.
He lowered his palm facing the floor, and levitated into the air effortlessly, safely out of reach from the lunging shadows commanded by Aelaine. Black robes whipping on his body from the breeze flowing in from the missing section of wall in his chambers, the Caberran wizard put both hands on the glowing staff and chanted, eyes fixed on his enemy.
“Julonisys afius kionias!” Three pulsing spheres of red energy, dripping with foul corrosive liquid that burned the stone floor, hovered and slowly moved toward Lady Lazlette. His concentration keeping them safe from counter attack or dispelling magicks, Dasius would have her on the run.
She tried, wand pointed at the pulsing spheres of flesh melting energy, yet their slow movements could not be swayed from the force behind them, absorbing any magic directed toward them. Aelaine stepped toward the broken wall, her only escape, and pointed two fingers at the ceiling above her opponent.
“Nivili bravool!” and lightning arced from her fingertips through the stone above his head, chunks of building falling in line as the bolts traced their way toward Dasius. The pulsating red orbs kept steady, following Aelaine, getting closer each moment. They stopped and hovered as the bald professor held up his hand, catching the lightning arc, seemingly absorbing it with little pain.
“Hilian Vahilianus!” She whisked her black wood wand in front of her body, a golden transparent wall of arcane force now between her and the red spheres determined to reach her.
“You know better than that now, Aelaine. Nothing can stop Tridian Blood Spheres, not for long.” Dasius pushed the staff forward, concentrating on them breaking her arcane wall. Screeching, crackling, ear piercing disintegration filled the room as the three crimson orbs began to work their way through the magical barrier.
Aelaine looked behind her at the drop from the ruined wall, and prepared to levitate into the open air. The doors creaked open as she stepped from the edge in levitation a hundred or more feet above the ground.
“Dasius of Caberra, how disappointing.” Middir stepped into the ruined chamber with a look of resolve, his plain oak staff glowing blue with swirling arcane shadows.
“Middir, you surely have a class to teach, yes?” Dasius grinned.
“How much did they pay you for your treachery, old friend?”
“More than you would make in three lifetimes, old man.” Dasius rose higher in the air.
“So, not much then. Pity.” Middir floated upward and nodded to Aelaine that they would take him together.
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The entourage was moving quickly, trying to keep pace with Captain Kendrynn Shilde and the silent bodyguard, Angeline Berren. The captain, his short dark stubble contrasting with his pale morning skin tone, watched the woman beside him. Kendrynn knew that speaking to this woman was a waste of time for she never spoke to anyone. He and the Vallakazz guard had many a night discussing her beauty and contemplating aloud, with much ale, what the reason for her silence could be. She even moved quietly compared to his greaves and steel plate armor clanking upon the cobblestone path they hurried down. Despite the unanswered rumors, Captain Shilde knew this woman could hold her own better than any of his men, and the thirty soldiers following were also aware. Angeline was known for her prowess with a blade and some form of strange gifts that made her extremely formidable in combat. Kendrynn, in his mid thirties, imagined Angeline a few years younger, with fewer scars from what he had seen, at least fewer on the outside, and smiled acknowledging his interest.
“Left here, Angeline, cobbler said he saw a minotaur head south, then down through Warlock Way. Into that alley, there.”
Cold air blew her hair, refreshing her thoughts. Angeline turned the corner to the right, heading onto the main eastern merchant road known as Candelabra Street. No Gwenneth, but she sensed plenty of adversaries on the wind, their tight streamlined thoughts of killing on the breeze. Only those trained to listen and feel in such a manner would even have an inclination as to something out of the ordinary.
Looking down the road the silent guardian noticed nothing askew at the gate and she knew then that they had not passed through. Her shortcut through backstreets had placed the city guard and herself far ahead of the High Wizard's daughter and Angeline turned and stared at the captain. Her eyes met his for a moment or three, the men stopping abruptly behind them. Her arm reached out and pointed to the two jewelry stores and up to their balconies and the rooftops of the flats above, then to the Red Robe Tavern. She drew her blade and marched toward the house of ale and spirits without a word.
“This is not the way they went. Why here?” Captain Shilde was looking, he saw nothing. “The cobbler said---“
Angeline pointed to her boot, then wriggled her fingers as if there were coins in them, and nodded with a smile.
“Cobbler paid off? How do you know?”
The smile was all he needed, not doubting this mystical woman once since his heart had fallen for her.
“You heard her, men! Ten of you to the southern side with Angeline, the rest with me to the northern side of the street. Give me a thorough search of the second and thirds above Ollfir’s and Bransken’s. Let’s move!” The men split up, never questioning their captain, and scrambled up alley stairs and walkways between the old stone buildings of the packed eastern edge of Vallakazz.
The captain of the city guard drew his broadsword, put his shield to the ready, his purple cape blowing behind him, and followed his men straight ahead. Kendrynn saw bolts, half a dozen quick streaks of shadow from the roof top above the jeweler’s fine business.
“Take cover!” he cried. Too late, as three of his men dropped clutching their chests. His remaining men, shields up and blades drawn, rushed to conceal themselves at the side of the building and the front, backs against the walls and windows. More ammunition fired from the balconies, this time aimed at the captain, four bolts lodging in his round steel shield and several more glancing off as he knelt behind it.
“Up the stairs, rooftops, now!”
Angeline raced up the stairs that led to the second story of the tavern, leading her men to the top of the building. She ducked and dodged with her shoulders and hips in unison as a hail of crossbow bolts flashed her direction. Taking cover from the railings and beams for a second, then darting and diving forward to a wooden scaffold on the balcony, she avoided every deadly shot.
Concentrating on the air at her feet, she lifted with amazing speed from the second floor balcony to the stone slatted roof, finding herself face to face with five masked archers all reloading as fast as humanly possible. The men charged behind her on foot, now reaching the balcony, and the sounds of blade on shield rang through the city streets below along with shouts and screams of the citizens in the busy district who found themselves in the midst of a morning battle.
Knowing the second floor had the soldiers occupied with swordwork, Angeline stepped forward on the roof alone, staring at the stone slats, thinking of frost and ice from the clouds in the distance. Crisp sounds of popping and freezing echoed faintly from the roof as the archers aimed at the silent woman. Five bolts fired at her chest. The first two she avoided by turn
ing sideways, and they ended by whisking past her into the adjacent building’s wall. The third and fourth she cut in half with a single cross cut of her bastard sword, and the fifth skimmed her hairline on the left side of her head and drew blood from her ear.
Each man drew his saber, two of them producing off hand daggers as well. The slick rooftop did its work, two men falling to a knee and holding on for their lives, surprised by the change in footing. Another charged halfway to her and slid off the slanted rooftop, falling thirty feet to the ground with a muffled yell and a bone breaking impact on the cobblestone street below. Angeline Berren walked slowly and cautiously forward, blade out toward the four remaining White Spider assassins.
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The small tea table flew at the cursed swordsman, hurled end over end by the young mercenary in front of him, as did a chair from the one behind him. He ducked under them both, the furniture crashing together and falling atop a guest’s morning sausage and tea. The patrons scattered to the corners and kitchen of the Silverwand Tavern, one moment entranced by the upstart commotion from the Red Robe Tavern across the street, the next they were in the middle of a breakfast brawl that came from nowhere, right beside them.
Kendari drew Shiver, keeping his off hand free in the cramped little room of tables and chairs flying at him. Patrons scattering from outside in, city guard covering themselves from archers on rooftops, and guests inside were trying to get out. Two sabers loosed from scabbards to his front, and another chair was flung over his shoulder from behind, missing by inches, thrown by the hulking assassin placed by the rear exit of tavern. The Nadderi elf found himself in another tight place, outnumbered as usual.
He hopped onto one of the small tea tables, screams of attack and war issuing from Vallakazians all around the building as the doors opened and closed. Kendari knew it was a matter of a few moments before the city guard took charge of this little shop. His silent boots leapt from one table to another and somersaulted over the young swordsmen clad in black, landing behind them. His face and black spiral vein markings now apparent from the cloak falling back off his face, the elf grinned his pointy eared smile at the masked youths.
“Why do you all wear black, if you work for the White Spider?”
One lunged high, one came low and to the left. Kendari parried the attacks, yet the blond haired assassin on the left withdrew his blade at the last second, and attacked high with a flash of his wrist. The elven killer barely got Shiver up in time, his crosspiece catching the blade in high parry above his face, and the boy pressed, placing two hands on the grip.
“Amazing, one of you was trained how to feint.” His sarcasm and ego forcing the smile to remain, despite the other mercenary preparing to run him through from his rigidly held position. Kendari turned his body left, but the blade right, metal edges sliding across one another and his into the young assassin's face. Steel sliced him from nose through ear, burning the flesh with searing heat slowly and deeply as his scream ripped through the mask. He did not like dirty swordplay, but these men were reckless, tired, and strong. He realized that they would do anything to kill him here.
The second assassin cut again at the Nadderi’s chest, was parried downward, and attacked again a little higher with an angled slash toward the neck. Shiver met the blade halfway, beat the saber blade down quickly, and turned across the man's chest and back again. Two sizzling gashes through the neck and shoulder dropped the assassin to his knees holding his burned and bleeding wounds. The cursed elf drew his other longsword, grip reversed, from his right hip, turning to the right, steps in small perfect circles keeping pace with his enemy’s attacks.
Despite the boy’s horrid facial wound, he took no chances with the trained youths here and plunged his left hand edge into the exposed back of the crouching blond haired assassin. The downward force and deadly reverse grip killed the boy instantly while he kept his eyes locked with the third agent.
“Just you and I now. I will allow you a moment to run, if you wish.”
Puddles of blood at his feet, the third assassin, unarmed but standing a foot taller than the elf and nearly doubling his weight, stepped forward. He looked at the Nadderi with hate in his dark eyes. Older, the telltale wrinkles around those hating eyes told Kendari that this man was a veteran. A table hit him in the enchanted crossed bracers, shattering from the impact and knocking the elf back a foot. Covering his front with forearms and blades, he had nowhere to go but forward.
“Shame, you had a future for a moment, now you do not.”
A stool this time, at his abdomen, Kendari sidestepped the hurled wooden projectile and deflected it with his blades. The beast of a human man picked up another chair, stepping forward to put his body with his strength, hoping to knock the elf down with the force of the throw.
The elven swordsman stepped up on the table in front of him, leaping into the air. His jump was barely over the chair that whisked through the tavern, and he planted the tip of his off hand sword into the collarbone and flesh of his massive attacker and down through his chest. Leaving the weapon lodged in him, Kendari turned, having landed behind the man. He spun on his heels and cut Shiver’s edge through the ribs and up under the arm. Blood sprayed and seared with the heat from the enchanted weapon and the elf kicked his dying hulk down face first onto the floor. He drew Shiver up in the air, placed two hands on the hilt, turned it downward, and plunged the blade through the assassin. The wood planking of the floor splintered as the blade pierced it. Kendari removed his other sword from the man's shoulder, wiping the blades clean on the dead man's cloak.
He looked up, seeing frightened stares from the few that remained cramped in the kitchen. Kendari nodded a deep bow, pulled up his hood and made his way out the rear door to the northern side of Candelabra street.
“You may resume your morning fares, good day,” he whispered.
He heard the city guards battling above him, heard explosions faintly in the distance of the academy, yet he kept moving. Through shadows the buildings produced in the low morning sun, he silently and quickly made for the northern gate. His face and description obviously known by too many here in Vallakazz, Kendari made for the city walls and the open wilderness. Staying here, he thought, would only prove troublesome to what he wanted to attain. Taking it in the night, away from a hundred active prying eyes armed with blades, would be much easier.
He went to meet with the trolls of Salah-Cam and instruct them on the changes to the plan. He supposedly had plenty of allies waiting on the wooded trails, just not allies that could easily enter into a civilized city such as this. He had enough to handle the White Spider if they made off with the books or the scroll. They would return, or surely try, toward Valhirst in the east.
If the highborn elven woman and her friends made out with it, all the better. Whichever the case, Kendari would be there waiting. All he had to do was get out of the city, in broad daylight, unnoticed.
“Victim, victim, where are you now?” Kendari whispered, eyeing the streets from the alley. People pacing, men running, shadows searching in the streets and rooftops, and too many of the city guard ahead.
“Show yourself now, there is always one.” His eyes widened. A boy, young man perhaps, by himself with a drawn cart full of trade goods and blankets.
“Perfect.”
Kendari eyed the wagon, the crossing angle in the alleys, and waited for the right time to approach unseen.
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James hurried, shield over his head, as crossbow bolts rained toward him from the rooftops. He skidded in the snow as he rounded the corner behind Azenairk. His shoulder shot pain down his arm and into his neck, yet he ignored it over the close aim of the crossbows from above.
“This is getting a tad on the dangerous side. Archers on roofs, battles in the streets and taverns, explosions from magical fire back at the academy, murders in the temple, and all before my first meal. I am not sure Vallakazz is a good fit f
or me.” Dealing with his insecurity in a strange city he could barely recall from drunken travels, James feigned some humor and a laugh. “This wine had better be of incredible quality.”
His hands shaking with a slight tremble, needing his wine desperately, his stomach wanted to release whatever bile was in there to make room for what he hoped was on the caravan. He prayed they reached it before assassins cut them down. For James, sobering up to this reality was like a bad dream finally come true.
Covered for the moment in a side street off main Candelabra, the five fugitives caught their breath from the recent dash across the merchant district. Saberrak dropped the dead body he had been using as a shield. One of the assassins had lunged at him in the flight and ended up catching more than ten crossbow bolts for the minotaur, most unwillingly. The body hit the cobblestones with a thud, and Saberrak the Gray sighed, seeing the dead end alley.
“How far to the gate, and how many more will be there?”
“City guard, maybe ten. It’s around the corner here and down four blocks back on Vanish street.” Gwenneth was catching her breath as it had been many years since she had run anywhere in the cold.
Shinayne crept up to the corner, peering around to her right, seeing the eastern gate in the distance, hearing the sounds of the city guard hunting and fighting in the buildings to her left.
“There are more than twenty at the gate and past that on the bridge, half that in archers above the gate house on the wall walk. With thirty men to cover us, we should just make for the gate, Lady Gwenneth.”
“They could not have paid off your entire city guard, I agree, make for the east gate.” James nodded.
Azenairk walked toward the elf, ducking a crossbow bolt from the street that had deflected off a shield. “Lady Lazlette, your men stand guard at the gate. Can we just signal them here and be escorted? It would be much easier than all this sneaking around in your city, avoiding…..” he stopped, the last Thalanaxe thinking on his words, deeply putting an order to questions he had just felt the answer to.
