by Clare Smith
This was the room which held the sword racks and with the curtains open, the tall windows let in enough light to clearly see the swords he’d labelled and displayed within. There were hundreds of swords there and he’d held each one of them, but there was only one with which he felt an affinity. It was the blade with the dragon engraved on it, which fitted his hand perfectly. The sword had taken him days to research, but he still didn’t know where it had come from.
That didn’t matter now. All he needed was something with which he could defend himself if the person he’d heard moving around the office attacked him. He lifted the sword from the rack and immediately his confidence increased, and despite the fact that he’d only had a few fencing lessons, he felt as if he knew how to use the sword. Quickly he retraced his steps until he once again stood in front of the office door. There was no doubt about it, he could hear voices inside and not ones he recognised.
In the films he’d watched the hero would kick down the door and take the enemy by surprise, but he didn’t feel like a hero. Besides that the door and its hinges were new, and he doubted it would collapse even if he did kick it. Instead he slowly turned the door handle and when the voices continued as if they were unaware of his presence, he pushed the door open and stepped inside with his sword at the ready.
The lights from the mobile lamps only penetrated a few feet, so most of the room was in darkness, except for the area around his desk. That was lit up by flickering lights which sent long shadows spiralling up the wall. Despite his sudden appearance the voices continued unabated as if he wasn’t there, and apart from the shadows, nothing else moved.
Tobrin stood there with his heart pounding in his chest and every muscle tense and ready for action. Quickly he searched the room looking for the intruders, but the room was empty and then realisation dawned on him. He vaguely remembered watching a news programme the previous day and must have forgotten to turn the computer off when he went home. With shaking legs he staggered to the chair and turned the machine off whilst relief washed over him.
Once he’d stopped shaking he realised what a fool he’d been. If he’d thought that there were intruders in the house he should have phoned Richard or the police, but instead he’d tried to deal with it himself and could be dead by now. It had been a stupid thing to do but had felt right at the time. This was something personal between him and the stalker, and he alone had to deal with whoever was going out of the way to scare him.
For a long time he sat in the dimly lit room, staring at the blank screen and thinking about what he would do to the stalker when he found him, until the buzzing of the mobile phone dragged him out of his dark thoughts. He guessed that it would be Richard checking up on him, and felt irritated that his step-father had nothing better to do than interfere in his life.
Angrily he dragged the phone from his pocket, stabbed the green button and held it to his ear. “Yeh, what do you want?” The phone crackled noisily and then he thought he heard someone call his name. “Yeh, it’s me, whose there?”
The phone crackled again, but this time he distinctly heard his name, although it seemed to come from a long way away and he didn’t recognise the voice. “Who is this? What do you want?”
There was another crackle and then the phone went dead in his hand. He stabbed the on and off button and then slammed the phone down on the desk with a curse. That was typical of Richard, the lazy bastard hadn’t bothered to charge the thing and had probably given it to him knowing it wasn’t going to last very long.
It could also explain why he hadn’t recognised the voice, although he wasn’t certain if a flat battery would make a voice sound that different. There was always the possibility that the person who had been calling his name was the one who had been following him, which wasn’t a thought he wanted to dwell on. Instead he pushed the phone into his pocket and walked to the other side of the room to turn the light on and make a cup of tea.
The light made the room look a bit more cheerful, and for a moment he thought about having an early lunch and eating yesterday’s sandwiches which were still in the fridge. He went to fetch them but then his eyes fell on the metal object on top of the fridge and all thoughts of food disappeared. Almost reverently he picked it up, carried it back to his desk and sat staring at it.
It was a circlet of some sort, which he’d found a few days earlier inside a packing case which had been full of old pottery. There had been about twenty clay pots inside the case, which were round with a short neck and didn’t seem to have any practical use. He’d no idea what they could have been used for, as they had no stoppers and rolled around when he put them down on the floor.
In amongst them had been the circlet which, whilst it was broken, was of such fine craftsmanship, that it had immediately fascinated him. He’d spent hours studying its fine metal leaves which were attached to the intricately twisted vines which made up the base of the circlet. They looked so real it was difficult to distinguish them from live foliage, unless you touched them and then they were cold and hard.
He guessed that if the thing had been whole it would have been valuable, but as it was broken and a section was missing, it was probably worthless. That didn’t matter to him though, he found it intriguing, and without thinking about all the other things he had to do, he started cleaning it, revealing a deep reddish metal beneath the dirt and tarnish. The work absorbed him completely, and the more of the metal he restored, the more he felt connected to the circlet, as if he’d once owned it and it meant something to him.
He’d cleaned almost half of it when something broke through his concentration and he looked up, almost surprised to find himself in a small, enclosed room instead of the open atrium where he spent most of his free time. For a moment he couldn’t work out where he was or what had disturbed him, and then he heard it again; the creaking of floorboards, as someone walked across the hallway. He froze, remembering now that he’d locked the door of Charnel House and with Joe in Basingstoke and Jim on his way to Oslo, whoever was in the hallway shouldn’t have been there.
It had to be the stalker who had probably been made desperate by missing him that morning. If he was bold enough to go to the trouble of breaking into the house, it could only mean that he was ready to make his move. The old house would be the perfect place for him to attack, with no one else around and plenty of time for him to do what he’d come for.
The thought of being at the man’s mercy and being beaten or tormented before the man killed him terrified him, and he thought about running and escaping from the house, but knew that wouldn’t work. Undoubtedly the intruder had locked the door behind him so he wouldn’t be disturbed, and by the time he’d unlocked it again the man would be onto him. Perhaps he would use the javelin, which was still on the floor, to pierce his back and pin him to the door before he started torturing him.
There was no way he was going to let that happen though; he would get to the man first and kill him. Carefully he placed the circlet into the desk draw, locked it and slipped the key into his pocket. Then he stood and took the sword from beside his chair and made his way to the office door. The sword felt comfortable in his hand, as if it was meant to be there, and its presence gave him confidence, so that when he opened the door into the hallway his heart was only beating a little faster than normal and his footsteps were quite steady.
He didn’t know if the intruder was armed, or even if there was more than one of them, and whilst he knew how to use the sword he held, he needed an advantage. Leaning against the wall, where the intruder must have put it, was the javelin which was his preferred weapon. Swiftly he moved along the wall without making a sound and picked it up feeling the familiar springiness in his hand like an old friend. He was the hunter now, stalking his prey and up ahead he could hear his adversary waiting for him.
With the javelin in one hand and the sword in the other he moved forwards until he came to the first opening. He knew the intruder wasn’t in there, but all the same he peered inside, searchin
g the shadows in case his enemy had brought someone with him. The room was empty and he smiled to himself in satisfaction. This was going to be one to one, and if the intruder thought he was going to be an easy kill then he was wrong. There was only one person who was going to die here and it wasn’t him.
Breathing deeply to steady his nerves he moved quickly onto the next opening and peered around the corner into the brightly lit room. There he could clearly see the back of the intruder as he studied the rack of swords. The man was of average height with an athletic build, and looked like he could move fast, but that didn’t matter, the flight of a javelin was swifter than any man.
He knew he would get more power into the throw if he ran and threw, but that would give the intruder a chance to react, and if he had a gun it would give him time to shoot. For an instant he could feel the bullet tearing through his flesh, ripping his muscles apart and smashing his bones. He couldn’t allow that to happen, so he stepped into the open doorway, leaned back and launched the weapon with as much force as he could, giving a grunt of effort as the short spear left his hand.
Across the room the man startled at the sudden noise and by instinct threw himself to one side so that the javelin missed him by a fraction and ploughed into the wooden stand he’d been looking at. In an instant he was on his feet with one of the swords in his hand and staring in disbelief at his attacker.
“Bloody hell, Tobrin, you nearly skewered me with that thing!”
Tobrin stared at him without saying a word, but swapped his sword to his other hand. He knew this man and how well he could use a blade, but that didn’t matter to him, he could use a sword too. He gave a shout of anger and sprang forward, swinging the blade at the man’s neck. It was a move Jim Carter hadn’t been expecting and he almost left it too late to raise the heavy broadsword he’d grabbed in his defence.
The suddenness of the attack and the force of the blow made him stagger back into another rack of swords which blocked his retreat as Tobrin's reverse slice came in low. He blocked that but only just.
“Tobrin! It’s me, Jim Carter,” he shouted but he could see by the look on the boy’s face that he didn’t recognise him.
Tobrin could hear the intruder shouting something at him which he couldn’t understand, but that wasn’t going to save him. The man was trapped and unable to use his speed or agility and was going to die by his sword. He moved in fast cutting across his enemy’s chest, but the intruder threw himself backwards over the sword rack so that his sword tip only drew a thin line of blood. The rack went down with a crash forming a barrier between them and he cursed as he had to make his way around it.
“Tobrin! For fuck’s sake put that sword down and come to your senses, I’m not here to hurt you.”
He ignored the words and charged in again, kicking the man’s fallen sword aside so that he could get at him. His blade stabbed out to pierce the man whilst he was down but the intruder scrambled out of the way and regained his feet with a different, lighter sword in his hand. This sword was thin and pliant and whipped around in front of his face, so it was difficult to get near enough to cut him. Instead he concentrated on the sword, battering at it and making it whine as steel scraped against steel.
Jim grunted with the effort as another blow jolted his arm and made his foil twist in his hand. The foil was the best that money could buy, but it wasn’t made for this kind of punishment, and it was only a matter of time before the blade would snap. His only hope was that Tobrin would tire before then and he could make contact with enough force to disarm him without hurting him too much.
He disengaged and took a step back to give himself a breathing space in the hope he could reason with the boy, but by the look of anger on his face, that wasn’t going to work. It wasn’t just his anger though but the feral look in his eyes, as if some malevolent creature was looking back at him and, for a moment, he wondered if the boy was human. He didn’t know what had possessed Tobrin, but this had to end before one of them was killed. Glancing behind him he could see something which might help, and took three rapid steps backwards.
His enemy was retreating now and all his speed and fancy footwork wouldn’t save him if he could just trap him in a corner. Pressing forwards the tip of his sword caught the intruder’s arm and blood bloomed across his white shirt making him cry out and drop his sword. Now he had him, but he wasn’t going to make this easy for his enemy, he was going to make him suffer just as the man would have done if their positions had been reversed.
He stepped in close so he could look into the intruder’s eyes, but missed what the man was doing behind his back. When the man’s arm whipped around he didn’t have time to defend himself or retreat, but just stood frozen to the spot. Then the handle of a hammer caught him on the side of his head and sent his world spinning into darkness.
Jim stepped back, dropped the hammer and clutched at his bleeding arm. From the look of it there was a fair sized cut which would need stitching, but that would have to wait whilst he dealt with Tobrin. He knelt down and felt the boy’s pulse, which was strong but a bit erratic, and was relieved that the blow had only stunned him and hadn’t killed him.
He’d no idea why Tobrin had attacked him but whether he was his friend or not, there was only one thing he could do. He pulled his mobile phone from his pocket, lit up the screen and pressed the circle with nine in it three times.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
CHAPTER NINETEEN
A Friend in Need
Chang’an
Twistirian didn’t know how long he’d been there before he regained consciousness, but it could only have been a matter of seconds as the blood from the Ban Long’s master was still spreading across the floor. He pushed the man’s arms from around his body and pulled himself onto his knees feeling sick and disorientated. He’d never felt like this before when he’d killed a man, and wondered whether it was because it hadn’t been a clean kill and he’d ended up fighting with his target.
The large amount of blood, which had splattered his face, covered his hands and was soaking into his shirt, didn’t help either. He needed to get away from all the blood, so he stood on shaking legs and stumbled across to the bed. There he used one of the fine linen sheets to clean his hands and face and blot ineffectually at his wet shirt until the white sheet turned red.
It didn’t take him long to clean himself, but it was time enough for his legs to regain their strength. He still felt very strange though, as if someone had rearranged his insides and his bones didn’t seem to fit together quite as well as they had done. Despite that he was once again sufficiently in control of himself, that his years of training came into play prompting him about what he needed to do.
Quickly he returned to the body to retrieve his weapons, sliding his knife free from his targets chest so that more blood leaked from the corpse. That just left the garrotte, but when he went to retrieve the hated weapon, he hesitated. It was buried deeply into the man’s face, and if he pulled it out it would bring lumps of flesh with it. He wasn’t squeamish but he couldn’t bring himself to do it, so he left the garrotte where it was and hoped that no one would recognise it as belonging to a member of his brotherhood.
The kill had taken only a few minutes, during which everyone’s attention had been drawn to the fire. Now though things would change as people began to question how the fire had started, and it wouldn’t be long before someone thought it might have been a diversion. Among the first places they would look were the Master’s rooms, so by then he had to be as far away from the pagoda as possible.
He pushed the knife inside his belt and retraced his steps to the open window on the other side of the room. Somehow it didn’t seem as high up as it had been before, although he knew that couldn’t be true. Carefully he climbed over the edge and let himself down until he dangled from the overhanging roof by his finger tips and then let go. For the moment he had the strangest sensation that he could fly and then he hit the ground hard, hissing at the flash of pain as his ankle tur
ned on a large stone.
The stone rolled away making a clatter loud enough for someone close by to hear, and leaving a scuff mark which a tracker would quickly find. He cursed under his breath and set off at a trot hampered slightly by the ache in his ankle. As he ran he tried to work out where he was and how far away the wall would be, but his sense of direction seemed to have deserted him.
Anxiously he glanced up at the sky where the deep blackness of the hour before dawn was beginning to change to a steely grey. The increased light would help him find his way, but it would also help his enemy find him. With dawn rapidly approaching, he quickened his pace and reached the edge of the ornamental garden without being seen.
Now the smooth surface of the courtyard gave way to rough ground, and he was concentrating so hard on putting the minimum amount of weight on his injured ankle that he almost missed the sound of someone approaching. They were on the other side of a stand of slender trees with slightly luminescent bark, and if he didn’t act fast he would surely be seen. Quickly he darted in amongst the tall trees, which were as thin as fighting poles, and stood in the centre with his lean body stretched to its limit and hoped that he looked just like another shadow.
He waited without moving, until he could no longer hear the person who had been there, before he moved again. He’d been lucky this time, because whoever it was who had been close by, they were clearly not Ban Long assassins who were trained to see inconsistencies in the shadows, but luck like that couldn’t last forever. He breathed deeply, releasing the tension inside of him and relaxed his stretched muscles. Then he was off again at a loping run, but more cautiously this time and keeping low to the ground.
