by Unknown
Those had to be priests.
“Why, why are you stupid enough to keep wearing the hoods even when your Order is disbanded by mandate from the king?” I asked them rhetorically, shaking my head at their foolishness. “Not that it doesn’t make my job easier, mind. In fact, if you simply must adhere to your fashions, don’t let me stop you.”
My paranoia had paid off, sadly. I’d rather have just been paranoid and gotten a good night’s sleep instead of the hour nap I had after dinner. Heaving a gusty sigh, I put my hands against the edge of the roof and swung myself back into the room, landing with a loud enough thump to wake Aletha. In fact, I startled her so badly that she shot upright, hand automatically reaching for the sword leaning against the side of the bed.
“What?” she demanded around a mouth glued together with sleep.
“Priests, coming quickly this direction,” I answered concisely, already throwing the packs together and reaching for Becca.
“What?” she wailed in dismay.
“We’re going to get attacked, Aletha. Don’t be a baby about it.”
“Can we get attacked less? Is that so much to ask?”
I didn’t answer her, more focused on getting Becca. I slid my arms under her and lifted her up with a single heft. She didn’t weigh much, so it didn’t take a lot of effort on my part.
Like last time, she woke up the moment her body lifted off the bed and her eyes flew open. She took in the situation with a quick glance around her, then her head flopped against my shoulder in a clear gesture of frustration. “Again?” she asked plaintively.
“What?” I asked in mock-surprise. “You don’t find ambushes in the dead of night to be fun? Where’s your sense of adventure?”
She lifted her head enough to give me a glare hot enough to melt steel.
Laughing, I set her on her feet and let her get some shoes on. Tail, having nothing to pack, already had the door open and sat in the hallway, waiting on us slowpoke humans to catch up with him.
I gathered up our packs—we had sensibly left them packed before turning in—and went down first, intending to saddle the horses. If there was any mercy in the world, we could get out of this inn and away from town before the priests got here.
The way they made a beeline straight here suggested that someone had either reported us (likely) or they had some kind of device on them to detect magic (equally likely). I really hoped it was the former because that meant we could get out of here and they wouldn’t be able to follow us. But even if they had a device, I still wanted out of this inn before we got into a dragged out fight. In-building fighting was one of my least favorite things in this world. Sword fighting in hallways was impossible, and fighting in rooms was challenging. Give me open space any day.
The girls caught up to me at the kitchen door.
“You think we can outrun them?” Aletha asked.
“I hope to,” I answered honestly.
You know those large, open-spaced kitchens that professionals used to cook for businesses? The ones with plenty of counter space, middle islands, with ample walkway in between everything?
That was not this kitchen.
In fact, I’d never seen a more cluttered, cramped working space. Anyone cooking in here would have to be rail thin to fit in between the counters, and even though I wasn’t particularly tall, I had to duck to keep from hitting my head against the pots hanging from the ceiling. It was a kill zone, and just stepping into the room made my skin crawl.
So, of course, that was the room that they caught us in.
I’d barely gotten halfway across the room when three of them came in through the back door, a glowing triangle device in their hands. Well, that solved that little mystery.
Shrieking hinges.
Here was the problem with fighting in tight, cramped quarters like this. If you pulled out a sword, you were liable to do one of two things: hit something you’re not supposed to, or hit someone you’re not supposed to. I tell you, the quickest way to lose a friend was to accidentally lob off their arm.
I’d been training and fighting with a sword for years, and I could adapt to most situations and come through them fine. But a true master understood that there were times when the sword was not the best option. That said, I could hardly go after the three in front of me barehanded. Those magicked weapons of theirs made hand-to-hand combat a bad idea.
I pulled the knife from my thigh sheath and turned sideways, settling into a proper stance that gave me room to fight and them not as much to hit.
The man in front pushed his cowl back (likely so he could see properly) and gave me a slight smile, as if trying to appear kind. “It is alright. We know that she has used her magic to charm you, to subdue you to her will. But I will break the spell for you and set you free of her.”
For a moment, I was so flabbergasted that I couldn’t think of a response. Then I just laughed out loud. “You expect an untrained magician to be able to bespell people into helping her? Wow. I haven’t heard that one before. Gorgeous, you think Chatta knows a spell like that?”
Aletha snorted. “If she had, she’d have used it on Garth years ago.”
“Good point.”
The man frowned. Apparently we hadn’t reacted the way he wanted us to. “That thing behind you is a danger to the world. Give us the girl.”
I wagged a finger at him and tsked him cheerfully. “Thou shalt not have my little sister. Get this through your heads, boys.”
He must have decided that nothing he said would work on us—and he was right, it wouldn’t—as he simply drew two juttes from underneath the cloak.
Eyeing the weapons in his hands, I realized that for once I wasn’t facing some novice trainee with little experience or combat training. He held those things like a veteran. Now, a jutte alone was little longer than a knife, and it was usually paired up with a longer sword when in combat. The fact that he drew two of them meant he’d realized what I had—sword fighting in this cramped space would not go well.
Wise of him to realize that, but I only had one knife, and fighting an experienced priest with two juttes would not be easy. I needed a second weapon in my hand, and I only had about two seconds to get one before he lunged at me.
There were all sorts of kitchen tools and such lying abandoned on the countertops to either side of me. My eyes took it all in within a split second. Butcher knife on my left side. Perfect. My hand reached out and snatched it up just as he threw the first attack.
He came in low, the juttes aiming for my throat and stomach. I blocked the one at my stomach and used my left hand to catch the jutte headed for my throat.
It was at that point that my eye caught sight of what exactly I was blocking with.
A ladle.
Catching the look of surprise on my face, the priest gave me a feral grin. “I think that was not the thing you wanted.”
“You’re right,” I agreed. Even as I kicked myself for not grabbing the butcher knife, the absurdity of the situation tickled my funny bone. I was fighting a priest with a soup ladle, of all things.
“I’ll give you a moment to switch weapons if you wish,” he offered generously.
“Naw, it’s fine. It’s more fun this way.” I meant it, too. I’d never fought with a ladle before. This should be interesting.
He clearly thought I was crazy—which I was, and he wasn’t the first or last to think that—but it didn’t stop him from pressing his attack. Taking a half-step in, he tried to use the jutte aimed at my throat to twist and wrench the ladle free, no doubt ending in my crushed windpipe. But the typical move wouldn’t work. The spoon caught the end of the jutte and not only pulled him up short, but gave me the leverage I needed to twist and flick the jutte out of his hand.
Even as he reeled, arm flailing over his head, I slammed my elbow into his throat, then slammed the ladle into his temple. He crumpled to the ground like discarded clothes.
Hey, this thing wasn’t half-bad to fight with. I twirled it in my hands like
a theatrical swordsman and gave a savage grin at the other two priests. “Next!”
They visibly hesitated, looking down at the man that I had defeated with a soup ladle and then at each other. Clearly he had been the best fighter of the group, and now that he was down, they weren’t really sure they wanted to take me on themselves.
“You can just quietly go away, you know,” I offered kindly, tone gentle. “I won’t tell, promise.”
My words, sadly, had the opposite effect. They decided they couldn’t let us go and so rushed me in concert. That was far from the best move. They quickly obstructed each other because of the narrowness of the aisle and tripped over their friend on the floor, so by the time they reached me, they were off-balance and in no position to give even a halfway decent strike.
Shaking my head at the sloppiness of it all, I blocked the kama with my right hand, and used the ladle to clip the other’s chin. Already teetering, he didn’t stand a chance. His head snapped back and he fell straight to the floor, the back of his head smashing against the corner of the counter as he fell. With a groan of pain, he came to an immediate stop on the tiles.
His friend tried to react, but I had the kama in a sturdy lock. Even as he struggled to wrestle it free, I used the handle of the ladle to slam into his sternum, which folded him over abruptly. His face was so close to my knee that I gave them a proper introduction, breaking his nose and then sending him to the ground with a grunt of pain. He lay there, gasping for breath and holding his bloodied face.
“Shad.”
“Yes?”
“Did you just beat up three priests with a ladle?”
“I did. Wow, I’m impressive! Are you impressed? ‘Cause I’m impressed.”
Aletha’s look at me did not convey the emotion of impressed. Rather the opposite, actually. “Seriously? You have a perfectly good sword strapped to your side and you pick up a ladle?”
“I was actually reaching for the butcher knife right next to it, but yes, yes I did, and you know why? Because these are tight quarters and I didn’t want to risk taking someone’s head off accidentally. Can I get a little thanks, here?”
For that, she poked me in the ribs. Hard.
“OWW! Can we start with you just telling me ‘no’ before we go to bodily harm? I’m pretty good with a no, I can work with a no.”
“Will you just go? We don’t know how many there are.”
“One second.” I leaned down and rummaged through the head priest’s clothes until I found the triangle. With great satisfaction, I put it under my bootheel and stomped on it hard. It shattered in a tinkling of glass. Just in case that didn’t completely do the trick, I scooped up the metal frame and put it on the counter, where I used the ladle to beat it completely out of shape. Huh. This thing came in rather handy. I eyed it thoughtfully. “Can I keep the ladle?”
Both women and the cat rolled their eyes at me.
“Yes,” Aletha answered in exasperation. “Go.”
Excellent.
Traveling around at midnight had its pros and cons. Mostly cons. For one, riding around on unfamiliar roads in the pitch-darkness left even me, who had a superior sense of direction, somewhat insecure about our location. Cloud and Tail both had better night vision than I did, but even they struggled with this switchback we were on. I finally called for a stop about two hours out, and we pitched a quiet camp in a small clearing. Basically, we just rolled up in our bedrolls and went to sleep, not even building a fire.
The morning sun couldn’t properly penetrate through the thick canopy of leaves and branches overhead, but sunlight filtered through enough that we naturally awoke with the dawn. After only getting about four hours of sleep, I hardly felt revived and reinvigorated.
Aletha, looking as tired and worn-out as I felt, creaked to her feet. “Wakey, wakey, everyone. Time to move out.”
I groaned and pulled the blanket over my head more. I didn’t care if the ground was littered with little rocks and tree branches, all of which were digging into my side. I didn’t care if the morning dew was seeping into my blankets. I wanted sleeeep.
“Shad, that includes you.”
“I’m sorry, I can’t leave my blankets right now,” I muttered through the cloth. “They have accepted me as one of their own, and if I leave now, our relationship will be forever ruined. I must commune with them a while longer.”
“Uh-huh,” she said dryly. “Becca, get him.”
An exuberant child climbed onto my waist and started bouncing. I grunted under her weight and reached out a hand, snagging her and dragging her next to me. She squirmed and giggled, apparently finding this whole situation funny.
It was near impossible to sleep with a laughing, fidgety child in your bed. I gave up and threw the blanket back before rolling to my feet, deliberately ‘squashing’ Becca in the process. She mock-groaned in pain under my weight, laughing when I let her go again.
Why did children naturally have so much energy? And wasn’t there some way to bottle it for the adults?
We had limited food supplies on us, mostly hard travel bread, jerky, and some plain water. We ate what we could for breakfast before saddling up and continuing down the trail. With the sun rising, I could gain my bearings again, and was relieved that we were more or less headed in the direction of the coastline. Aletha and I had discussed it briefly last night. If we were still getting attacked by priests this close to the Chahiran-Hainian border—and we were ridiculously close, only twenty or so miles away—then actually crossing into Hain wouldn’t bring us any measure of safety. These priests were zealous in their desire to kill Becca. But she was the only living Weather Mage. It would be quite the coup if they could kill her and end a whole magical line.
But if we couldn’t go west, east, or north, that only left us one option: the sea.
Our only chance at this point was to get on a boat and sail for the next safe harbor. If we could get far enough north, we’d leave behind the danger of being constantly attacked. Better still, we’d be within range of going inland to any number of magical relay stations that Vonlorisen had set up. We could call for either a ride or help if we needed to.
Of course, in order to get to that magical land of safety, we’d have to make it all the way to Movac, in Echols Province. Basically, sail halfway around the country. I didn’t know if any of the small ports or fishing villages near us would either have ships going that direction or be willing to travel that far.
I might have to acquisition a boat.
As I ruminated over different possibilities and made plans for each, most of the morning slipped away. We started to smell the strong scent of the ocean, salt and water mixed together and drifting through the air. I knew we had to be close, but still couldn’t see it through all the trees.
A certain group of somebodies was depending far too much on this thick foliage to cover them and their movements. I caught glances out of the corner of my eye. Even if I had missed them, the way that Tail stared directly behind us, his ears flat against his head and his fur sticking straight up, pretty much gave them away. I had to half-turn in my saddle to see him, as he sat on Cloud’s rump, but I managed it without dumping Becca from my lap in the process.
“You see ‘em?” I asked him softly.
His ear twitched in my direction in affirmation.
“You get a headcount?”
Raising a paw, he delicately clawed the air three times, paused, then did it once more.
“Three you’re sure of, perhaps four?”
He bobbed his head in confirmation.
“You’re good at understanding him,” Becca marveled.
“It was either learn quick or get scratched,” I explained absently. Tail hadn’t been the most patient of teachers. Now, the question was, what to do with them? I hardly wanted to go into a port and negotiate for a boat with a bunch of priests trying to take my head off.
“Gorgeous?” I called ahead.
Aletha turned in her saddle and said nonchalantly, “We’
ve got more priests on our tail.”
“So you did see ‘em.” I glanced over my shoulder. Where were they all coming from, anyway? I knew Aletha said that all the renegade priests had fled south, but surely we hadn’t missed that many! I felt like we couldn’t round a curve in the road without more of them coming out of the woodwork.
Well, either way, we couldn’t just ignore them. I kicked a foot free of its stirrup, preparing to dismount, when Aletha cleared her throat in a meaningful way. Pausing, I glanced up. “What?”
“You fought the priests last time,” she informed me primly.
“Yes, I did. Oh, are we taking turns? We are? Since when? I mean, we’ve never taken turns before when enemies approached, we just sort of went yaaarrghhh and rushed ‘em.”
A visible tic developed near the corner of her mouth, and I could’ve sworn she was trying to set me on fire with her eyes.
“Um, Aletha, my dearest, I’m sensing a little frustration from you right now. A little anger.” Which worried me, as there was a distinct possibility it was me she was angry with, which never led to pleasant things. “Please don’t glare at me so; it wounds me to my very soul. If you wish to beat up the priests until you feel better, then by all means, don’t let me stop you. Stomp on them until your heart is satisfied. I won’t deprive you of the pleasure.”
Her glare softened—as in, it went from imminent death to a promisingly slight maiming—and she slid off her horse without a word or another glance in my direction. Pulling her sword free with a very cold shiing, she headed straight into the fray with the three priests without an ounce of hesitation or wariness.
Becca leaned in closer, her hands tightening into fists in my shirt. “Will she be alright?” she asked in a tremulous voice.
“There’s only three of them,” I assured her. Becca glanced up at me doubtfully. Oh, right, to her the priests were the ultimate boogeymen. Apparently I could be trusted to handle three at once, because to her mind, I was some sort of super soldier. But she’d not yet seen Aletha fight and so didn’t know that my pretty partner was just as deadly.
