Kittins cracked a grin, flew up the wall as fast as he could. Before reaching the top, he unfurled a small, heavy rug he’d carried with him and laid it over the edge, a precaution against the iron or ceramic shards defenders often placed as deterrents atop such walls. Climbing onto and over the top, Kittins saw no one in sight, which verified that the estate’s guards were otherwise engaged. Working quickly, he wrenched the grappling hook free and re-coiled the rope, stashing both behind a nearby potted plant. An oil lamp burned in a sconce not ten feet from Kittins’ location. He briefly considered using it to start a fire, perhaps burning the place to the ground, but remembered that the last time he’d tried something along those lines, and thought better of it. Instead, he tossed the lamp into the plant and snuffed it with dirt.
A voice challenged him from behind. He grabbed a handful of potting soil, spun and threw it, even as he drew his sword with his other hand. The house guard before him ducked sideways to avoid the dirt, which might have seemed a clever move in the moment, but which subsequently gave Kittins a much-needed second to close with him. One strong smash with his sword and Kittins beat down the man’s parry and ricocheted his weapon up into the defender’s face. It was over before it really got started.
There was a breezeway of sorts that followed the south wall westward, towards the back of the estate, and Kittins ran along it, looking for the door shown on Darley’s map. But there was no door. So much for accuracy. For whatever reason, the Blackbyrnes had renovated this side of the mansion and eliminated the door. Unless the details of the map outside the estate had been fact-based and those on the inside fabricated, which meant either that His Lordship had purchased a bad map from an unreliable source, or…Darley didn’t actually care what occurred once Kittins had gotten inside. Some twenty paces ahead, the wall on his right came to an end, while the outer wall, on his left, continued into the darkness. There was open space ahead, and Kittins thought he heard the sound of voices lowered in close conversation. Whoever it was seemed surprisingly unconcerned about the “attack” on the estate’s north side or the riotous gang at the main gates. Kittins slowed, peered around the corner and discovered an ornamental garden. From here, he couldn’t make out the least noise of trouble anywhere else. Instead, he heard the gentle tinkling of wind chimes, the splashing of water in fountains, and the rustling of leaves in the breeze. And the unmistakable sounds of desperate, furious sex. Well, that explained a lot.
He also spied, at last, a door on the building’s western side. And beyond this building and across a narrow footpath, a second structure. On a hunch, he stayed low and crept towards the far building; it made sense that the family’s more-important members would lodge in the estate’s innermost dwellings, away from the racket and potential danger of the neighborhood’s main streets. The lovers, oblivious to all else, continued their ridiculous cacophony of grunts, groans and gasps in the darkness off to Kittins’ left. He had hoped to take a quick peek into the doorway on his right as he approached and passed, just to be sure no one lurked there, but instead encountered two fully armed guards, as shocked at his sudden appearance as he was of theirs. Evidently, they’d been eavesdropping on the lovers. When they caught sight of him, though, the closest man lunged from the doorway in attempt to knock Kittins off his feet before he could bring his weapon around. The second man grabbed his crossbow off the floor and started cranking it, even as he yelled for help at the top of his voice.
No turning back now, Kittins thought. He spun with the impact of the first guard and flung the man into the bushes, then allowed his momentum to carry him back around towards the second guard, whom he slashed across the belly. Blood spewed from the man’s gut, but he continued screaming for aid until Kittins hacked through his neck and pushed his corpse back into the hallway. There was no point in trying to run or hide, now. He could hear armored boots stomping towards him from within the building. No one approached from his left or right, and the lovers had wisely fallen silent behind him. There was nothing for it: he’d been sent here to kill as many of Blackbyrne’s family and staff as possible, and he didn’t suppose it mattered much which ones he started with. In the back of his mind, he was dimly aware that he was travelling ever further down the road of damnation, a journey he’d begun the first time he entered House Gault. But he didn’t – couldn’t – see any way back to the man he’d once been, or had at least aspired to be. Now, he lived only in the moment, fought only to live from breath to breath.
Four guards came into view at the end of the hallway, having rounded a corner Kittins couldn’t see from his vantage point. Four. Fuck! Their numbers were doubling every time he encountered them. He considered himself a formidable fighter, but he didn’t like his chances if this trend continued. In a flash, he grabbed the second guard’s discarded crossbow and fired it into the oncoming group, missing the man in front he’d intended to hit and instead picking off one of the three behind him, who went down in a heap. The survivors showed no sign of panic, however, as they fanned out as much as the generous hallway would allow and flatly dared Kittins to attack them. He understood: if they got him inside, he’d be much easier to surround than he was in his current position outdoors.
A scrabbling to his rear alerted Kittins just in time that the man he’d thrown in the bushes had recovered and was preparing to strike. The big man ducked and rotated forty-five degrees to his right; a sword whooshed by his head. He could still make the far building if he ran for it. With a burst of speed, he surged across the footpath, ever closer to his objective. He was probably going to die; he’d already reconciled himself to that. But if that was the case, he wanted to take someone of importance with him, someone that House Blackbyrne found indispensable. He’d been ordered to make certain that person was Kendell, but, in a pinch, he’d take anyone of name or rank. It wasn’t as if his shade would be compelled to apologize to Lord Darley if Kittins fucked up.
He reached the new building and ran to the left, on instinct. Darley’s map had already failed him once, and he no longer trusted it. Left, though, was a bad choice, as it turned out. Two more guards came running at him from that direction. A quick backward glance revealed that Kittins had no time to retreat: the other four guards were rapidly drawing within striking distance. He wasn’t panicked: all of these men were smaller, slighter than he. Still, it was frustrating as all hells to be running around in the unfamiliar warren of another estate, not knowing when, where or if he’d find the man he sought. Kittins bull rushed into the two oncoming guards, slapping aside their weapons and sending both men tumbling like children’s toys. As he passed through them, he thought, Six behind me, now. Not good. He’d have to start fighting soon, reduce their numbers, or he would find himself in the shit for sure. Ten feet away, he saw what he’d been looking for: a doorway leading inside this second building. Wasting no time, he barreled through the archway and crashed into a large, wooden double door, blasting the half on his right completely off its hinges and knocking it back into the hallway beyond. He wasn’t remotely surprised to find more guards, although he wondered who in Mahnus’ name they had left to deal with Darley’s two diversions. What was it now, ten, eleven guards he’d encountered? Picking up speed, he raced towards the latest threats and engaged them as quickly as possible.
This time, there were only three – only! Kittins raised the sword in his right hand and pulled a long knife from his belt with his left. The closest guard wore the most armor and was wielding a mace. Kittins had only contempt for mace-wielding buffoons. With a sword, even a nick could kill if you got lucky. A nick from a mace? A lot harder to accomplish and nowhere near as deadly. But the man was carrying a round shield in his off-hand, which meant he might avoid death long enough for the six at Kittins’ back to arrive. Again, Kittins tried to trample over or through his adversaries. The man in front toppled backwards into the two men behind him, knocked them down, but managed to stay on his feet. Kittins came in, swinging. The guard blocked Kittins’ sword with his shield and p
arried Kittins’ knife with the haft of his mace, but the bigger man kept driving with his legs, until at last the guard tripped over the men behind him. Kittins chopped at the fellow’s mace arm and took it right off, between the shoulder and elbow. The men underneath him struggled to regain their feet, and the big man hacked them both to death within seconds, before bounding over their bodies and charging further into the building.
Somewhere along the line, he’d taken a puncture wound to his upper left thigh and been gashed along his right forearm, just above his gauntlet, but below the cuffs of his chain shirt. He might’ve worn more armor, but he found the full suit far too cumbersome for his tastes and fighting style. Anyway, the wounds he sustained so far were of nominal importance. So far.
Soon, he came to a stairway that went both up and down from his current level. He chose the former, bounding up the stairs two at a time, harried along by the shouts and bellowing of his pursuers. He ignored the second floor altogether and decided to head for the top, however high that might be. It seemed to Kittins that the wealthy and powerful favored looking down on cities and the people who inhabited them from great heights, as if they were raptors looking for prey. Or vultures looking for carrion.
At the third floor landing, he encountered a nobleman, ignobly trying to run away. Kittins grabbed the fellow by the scruff of his neck and, without so much as a ‘by your leave,’ tossed him through one of the many windows that adorned the stairwell. The man screamed for longer than seemed possible, given the two-story drop. Below, the racket raised by the House guards subsided suspiciously. Kittins surmised there must be another route to the top floor, and likely his pursuers were looking to head him off or ambush him. With his need to rush reduced, Kittins slowed down, climbed the stairs more carefully, and made a special effort to visually explore all possible avenues of escape or attack.
The stairs concluded at the fourth floor, which was so silent, Kittins was all but certain he was not alone. Someone was listening for his arrival. He stopped for a moment, rested, and readjusted his armor and his grip on his weapons. On the wall near his head, Kittins noted the Blackbyrne family crest, a trowel. Well, takes all kinds, he supposed. He stood at a tee; the hallway continued off to his right and left. There were doors in both directions, some of which stood open. Of these, some were dark and others glowed with lights that suggested they were either occupied or recently had been. Kittins thought back to the Baby Butcher’s house. He’d gone right into trouble when he should have gone left to salvation. Fuck it, he thought, and went right again. He listened at the first closed door and heard nothing. That didn’t mean it was empty, however, and he couldn’t very well leave it unchecked at his back while he moved on. Carefully, he turned the knob and eased the door open a crack. Then he became disgusted with himself. He was not a skulker and wouldn’t act like one. He raised his weapons and kicked the door in. The room stayed dark, but was clearly empty. As he turned to explore the next room, he was greeted by the sight of several men standing quietly in the hallway ahead of him. How had they gotten there so stealthily?
“Skulkers!” he spat.
There was laughter behind him. More men.
Kittins dove into the room, rolled across the floor, crashed into a table or some such (it was hard to tell in the dark) and leapt to his feet. He couldn’t fight ten or more men in the closed quarters of the hallway, but maybe he could gradually reduce their numbers as they came through the door.
Two men stepped into the door’s frame, one high and one low, and fired crossbow bolts into the room. One of the shots went high and wide, hitting the back wall somewhere near the ceiling. The other shot was a good deal closer to Kittins and shattered a ceramic something-or-other that had been on the aforementioned table. The crossbowmen disappeared while they reloaded, and then someone called out to Kittins.
“You must be the most incompetent thief in the kingdom!”
He wouldn’t rise to the bait. To do so would reveal his position, and denying that he was a thief would help his opponents in determining what he was.
“Either that, or you’re the world’s worst assassin,” the voice continued.
It occurred to Kittins that maybe he was breathing too loudly, so he struggled to calm himself. Sooner or later, they’d get some light in the room and he’d be dead. Then he heard men coming in through a side door from an adjoining room he hadn’t foreseen.
“Fact is, you’ve gone and got yourself cornered. What kinda idiot runs to the top floor of an enemy’s mansion and tries to hide in a corner?”
All this prattle was misguided: Kittins would never give himself away. Might be they knew that, however. Might be, this was just some attempt to stall until…until…the House Shaper showed up.
Kittins exploded from his position and slashed away at the men on his left flank like a man butchering a steer. He rained blows from long knife and sword upon the surprised guards with the full force of his considerable strength. Caught flatfooted, they stumbled backwards, two of them dropping almost immediately. The bolt from a crossbow twanged off his right pauldron and struck one of his opponents in the face. The man didn’t even have time to scream.
“Cease firing, dammit!” the voice yelled. “You’ve hit the wrong man!”
Seeing that the side door was almost within reach, Kittins redoubled his efforts to destroy everyone between him and escape. There were three men, now, and at least one of them seemed completely unmanned by Kittins’ ferocity. “I didn’t sign up for this shit!” was a phrase the captain had often heard from cowards in the army, when a particular scrap turned out to be more than they’d expected. Kittins would be doing House Blackbyrne a favor by killing this white-livered nothing. The problem was that the two men between Kittins and the coward were giving him all he could handle, and he feared every second that passed brought the Shaper closer to entering the fray. The big man had no qualms about facing scores of steel-wielding enemies, but he sure as all hells had no interest in being paralyzed, set afire, or frozen like a block of ice.
Finally, he killed the man on his left with a swift uppercut to the groin. The long knife sank in its full foot-and-a-half; Kittins gave it a wrenching twist for good measure – eliciting bloodcurdling screams from his victim – while he fended off the man on his right with his sword. Suddenly, he had both hands, both weapons available to him, and he offered too many blows to be countered. In no time, the last of the brave men went down, leaving no one but the coward between Kittins and the hope of freedom. He was further spurred by the sound of heavy feet tromping into the room behind him. With one, bold push, he shoved the coward backwards through the doorway and ran over the man’s prone body, breaking something in the process.
This new room had a window, through which moonlight fairly blazed (in comparison to the room he’d just left), and Kittins saw that he only succeeded in buying himself a few extra heartbeats, at best. He still had men at his back and more could come in from the hallway at any moment.
*****
Spirk, House D’Escurzy
The refuge Spirk had in mind, as it happened, was underneath Lord Titus’ bed. Much to Ron’s chagrin.
“You can’t be serious!” he exclaimed. “We ain’t safe here!”
“I know that!” Spirk laughed nervously.
Ron took a deep breath, let it out slowly. “How’d you do that, anyhow?”
“I dunno, really. Might be Pellas’ again.”
“Pellas? The great wizard?”
“Yeah,” Spirk sighed. “We was friends.”
Ron rolled onto his side, the better to see Spirk’s face. “Truly?”
“Truly.”
A faint clamor sounded somewhere off in the house.
“We can’t stay here,” Ron reminded his master.
“We won’t. There’s a special door under here that only Titus knew about.”
“Only Titus and you,” Ron corrected.
Spirk bobbed his head in affirmation and smacked it on the underside of
the bed. “Alheria’s balls!” he cried, eliciting a chuckle from Ron.
“That’s a new one,” he said.
When Spirk pivoted towards the head of the bed, he inadvertently kicked his companion in the face, causing Ron to develop a nasty nosebleed. “Alheria’s balls!” Ron swore.
“Sorry. Did I hurt you?”
“Long as you don’t turn me into no statue, I’ll be good.”
“I don’t think I could do that again if I tried,” Spirk answered, fiddling around with the wall near his face.
“That’s a comfort,” said Ron.
A sudden draft of cool air swept across both men, and Ron realized Spirk had opened the secret door he’d spoken of.
“It ain’t real big,” Spirk warned. “’Cause Lord Titus wasn’t real big. We’ll have to shimmy our way along on our bellies.”
As he was still struggling to staunch the flow from his nose, Ron didn’t have time to object. “Just let’s get out of here,” he pleaded.
“Here we go!”
It was a very black, very tight crawl, and it seemed to go on much too long, even for an estate the size of House D’Escurzy. Eventually, the passage widened enough to allow both men to crawl on their hands and knees. Ron supposed it had been designed that way intentionally, to reduce the number of possible pursuers. But he couldn’t figure out how it had been created in the first place.
As Flies to Wanton Boys (Immortal Treachery Book 2) Page 34
