Weapon of Blood

by Chris A. Jackson

  Kellik’s eyes flicked beyond Wiggen to Lad, then back again. The woman’s sneer faded to a grimace of fear. She, apparently, knew Lad’s reputation. The blade at Lissa’s throat wavered.

  Wiggen’s hopes soared. So close! She took a slow step forward and reached out her free hand toward Lissa. Her daughter caught sight of her then, and let out an insistent shriek.

  “Oh, no, you don’t!” Fast as a viper, Horice whipped his rapier free of its scabbard and lunged. Immediately, his arm drooped, the elbow slack, and the sword’s tip dropped to the ground instead of plunging into Wiggen’s chest. Confusion twisted his face, followed quickly by belligerence. “What the hells?”

  For a moment, every eye snapped toward the Master Blade…except Wiggen’s. She grasped the hilt of the dagger sewn into her dress and lunged forward with all her strength.

  The long, narrow blade sliced easily through the material of Wiggen’s dress, barely slowing as it pierced Kellik’s leather vest. Wiggen felt it plunge hilt-deep into the flesh just below the sternum, angled up, just as Lad had taught her.

  Kellik’s eyes widened in surprise, and Wiggen used the instant to snatch the blade at her daughter’s throat. Not until she saw the blood flowing between her fingers did she feel the pain, but she gritted her teeth against it. Though the dagger cut her, Kellik couldn’t jerk the knife, couldn’t slash or stab at her. The magic of the guildmaster’s ring prevented any counterattack. As Kellik crumpled to her knees, Wiggen released her grip on both weapons and caught Lissa in her arms.

  “Grab her!” No honey dripped from the Master Inquisitor’s words now as Patrice stepped back toward her bodyguard. “Now!”

  As she turned from Kellik, Wiggen spied Youtrin lunging for her. His steps faltered as if he had been caught in an invisible net. The veins in his thick neck bulged as he tried, and failed, to reach out and grab her.

  “Hells, just kill the bitch!” Horice shouted as he straightened from his lunge, raising the tip of his rapier out of the mud.

  Nothing happened. Every assassin in the courtyard tensed, but not a single crossbow fired, not a single sword lifted to strike.

  Wiggen gathered Lissa close to her body. The ring would protect her, and she would protect her child. Then she caught Horice staring at her, or rather, staring at her left hand as it clutched Lissa’s blanket.

  “The ring! She’s wearing the godsdamned guildmaster’s ring!”

  “Wiggen, go!”

  With Lad’s voice urging her on, Wiggen raced across the courtyard as all Nine Hells broke loose behind her.

  With every eye on Wiggen, Lad struck.

  No mercy…

  Horice stood only three long strides away, but the Master Blade’s reflexes had been honed by decades of murder. The long blade swept in a perfect arc of rune-etched steel to intercept Lad’s leap.

  Lad twisted like a corkscrew around the weapon’s path, losing only an inch of hair from his head as it swept past. Then his feet cracked together, snapping the assassin’s forearm like a stick of kindling. Horice’s nerveless fingers loosed the hilt, and the blade flipped end over end.

  Lad landed in a spinning crouch and reached out. The wire-wrapped hilt of the enchanted sword smacked into his palm…and writhed in his grasp. The hilt melded into his grip as if it had been made for him, the ornate basket guard and crosspiece constricting into a simple round guard. The blade thickened and curved into that of a katana, the weapon he knew best.

  The change nearly threw Lad off, but he recovered as he spun on the ball of one foot and swept the blade around in a flat arc. Enchanted steel passed through Horice’s middle with little resistance, snicking through his spine like a scythe through a blade of grass. The Master Blade fell in two, his voice rising in a horrible wail of panic as he clutched at his spilled entrails.

  The other masters were slower to react, but not by much. Neera flung a spray of poisoned glass shards, and Youtrin whipped a hand axe at Lad with an underhand pitch. Patrice hastened her retreat, shoving her bodyguard forward.

  Lad flipped backward, easily evading the twirling axe, and splashed back down after the storm of poisoned shards had passed beneath him. He spared a glance toward the tunnel to the street, and breathed easier to see Wiggen ducking unhindered into the darkness. All attention centered on him, just as they had planned.

  His concern for his family cost him, however. At a flicker of movement in the corner of his eye, Lad twisted away, snapping the sword up to parry, but too late. The whirling axe scored a line of pain across his shoulder. The blade had apparently arced in flight like a boomerang, then hurtled back for a second pass before the haft smacked precisely into Youtrin’s meaty palm. The Master Enforcer grinned as he drew a second axe from his belt.

  “No one else has to die tonight.”

  Lad’s proclamation elicited derisive laughter from Youtrin and a silent sneer from Neera as they and their bodyguards stood their ground. Patrice’s bodyguard looked ridiculously vulnerable in her low-cut dress, but the snarl on her face did her more credit than the worried look on the Master Inquisitor’s. One other, Horice’s bodyguard—Sereth—glanced at his fallen master, then at Lad, and backed away, his face strangely blank.

  “I disagree.” Youtrin grinned and nodded toward the assassins encircling the courtyard, their crossbows aimed at Lad. Some of them still looked baffled at being unable to shoot Wiggen, but they quickly brought their weapons to bear. “You’re quick, but not that quick. Kill him!”

  More than a dozen crossbows began firing a ragged volley. In that split second, Lad despaired. He might have been able to evade the swarm of deadly missiles if they’d all flown at once, but the staggered fire thwarted the effectiveness of a displacement maneuver. He couldn’t dodge them all. He needed help, and there was only one place it could come from. He wondered if it would come too late.

  But as the bolts took flight, Mya exploded up from her brief death in a storm of blood, mud, shredded canvas, and flashing daggers. She deflected six bolts that would have pierced Lad, and two more plunged into her flesh as she intercepted their flight. The others Lad managed to deflect or evade before he landed back to back with Mya in the bloody mire.

  Lad couldn’t suppress a feral grin at the astonished looks on their opponent’s faces. These assassins knew death better than anyone, and they’d watched Mya die. But they hadn’t known her secret. Though bloody, the death stroke had not immediately stopped her heart, and the wound had healed in moments. Mya had been right; they needed her help, but he’d been surprised when she had readily agreed to their grisly plan. And not only agreed, but praised him for the scheme.

  “Finally,” she’d said, “you’re thinking like an assassin!”

  He heard the snick of her dagger severing the head of a bolt that protruded from her stomach, and the wet sound of the shaft being pulled free. Another snick, and the one from her leg splashed to the muddy ground.

  “How…” Youtrin gaped in shocked puzzlement.

  All around them, assassins stared wide-eyed. Several looked panicked, but most had been in the guild for too many years to be fazed by facing two foes instead of one, even if one had seemingly risen from the dead. But Lad kept his gaze on the masters; they were the truly dangerous ones here.

  “Neera first,” he whispered too soft for anyone but Mya to hear.

  “I need to get close,” she whispered in return, “but I’ll need help.”

  He reached back with his free hand to grasp the belt of her trousers. “Now!”

  Lad lunged forward as he felt her leap, and flung her straight at the alchemist with every ounce of his strength. Unfortunately, Mya’s flat trajectory was predictable, and Youtrin’s axes reached her before she could put a dagger in Neera’s eye. She parried one, but the other struck under her the arm, the head buried in her ribcage. The impact deflected her, and her dagger stroke only scored Neera’s cheek.

  Lad charged.

  Youtrin and his bodyguard stepped in front of Neera, whose own bod
yguard inexplicably fell face-down in the mud, his poisoned darts still in his hands. The Master Enforcer caught the axe that Mya had deflected, and drew a hooked dagger. Crossbows fired, but only a few; Lad and Mya were too close to the masters for a clean shot. Instead, he heard the splashing footfalls of charging assassins. He deflected two bolts and one shuriken, but another bolt found him, lodging deep in his thigh. Ignoring the pain, he slashed at Youtrin, satisfied as he felt the katana snap the hooked dagger and cleave sinew and bone, flaying open the Master Enforcer’s massive chest. On his back swing, Lad sent the charging bodyguard’s head flying out into the rain.

  Beyond Neera, he saw Mya roll to her feet, and heard the crack of ribs as she removed Youtrin’s axe from her chest. She would heal, he knew, but how fast? Mya had already lost a lot of blood when Wiggen slit her throat. Lad knew from experience that blood loss would weaken her, even though her wounds healed.

  Bloody spittle darkened Youtrin’s chin, his breath a ragged, wet gurgle, but still he kept coming. As Lad dodged the sweep of his axe, he heard two more crossbows fire. He managed to deflect one bolt as he swept the blade around and split Youtrin’s thick skull just above his jutting brows, but the second bolt lodged in his shoulder. Knocked off balance, Lad fell to one knee in the mud. He envied Mya her magical pain block as agony lanced through him. Forcing the pain aside, he sprang away to prevent Youtrin’s corpse from falling atop him and pinning him in the mire.

  Steps away, Patrice’s bodyguard fell to a stroke of Mya’s stolen axe. Unfortunately, the distraction gave the Master Alchemist the opportunity to reach into her robe. A ball of green glass appeared in the old woman’s hand, and she flung it down at Lad’s feet.

  Lad lunged for small sphere, the bolt in his shoulder grating against bone as he flung out his free hand. He caught it as he would a falling egg, knowing that death awaited him inside that glass ball. He tucked into a protective roll, grimacing as the bolt in his shoulder snapped off against the ground, and hurled the glass sphere at the assassins rushing him from behind. The ball ruptured against the leader’s chest, a cloud of green vapor exploding forth to envelop several of Lad’s foes. Flesh melted from bone in a runny mass of liquefied meat wherever the mist touched them.

  Through the screams and hissing rain, Lad heard a strangled gasp. He hoped it was Neera choking on her own blood, but a glance dashed his hopes. The Master Alchemist was backing away from the battle, a bottle clutched in her hand. She looked down at the dark glass vessel, her ancient features pale with fear as she popped the cork and quaffed the potion. Still he heard the sound of choking breaths. Whipping around, he spied Mya standing over the corpse of Patrice’s bodyguard, one hand tearing at a serrated silver chain that constricted around her neck. Patrice clutched the other end of the chain, her painted features contorted in a rictus grin of vengeance.

  Mya clawed at the throttling chain, gasping for breath, and slashing ineffectually at it with Youtrin’s stolen axe, but she could not break free. It was killing her.

  I’ve got to help her. There was no way Lad could fend off all the attackers alone. But as he prepared to leap to Mya’s aid, the charging assassins fell on them both.

  Lad parried and slashed, kicked and punched, struggling to reach Mya. Though impeded by his arrow wounds, his strength sapped by pain, no blade touched him.

  A glance showed him that Mya fared far worse. She had managed to lay Patrice flat on her back, the axe blade embedded between the Master Inquisitor’s kohled eyes, but still the chain writhed and coiled around her neck. Mya fought to breathe, bloody fingers wedged between the chain’s serrated links and her throat. She met the onslaught of assassins with her last dagger, drawn hastily from her boot, and many well-placed kicks, but she was surrounded, and blades scored her flesh. She couldn’t take much more of this before she was too weak to fight. And once she was down, they could kill her.

  Lad slashed through his ring of adversaries and leapt to help Mya.

  Two of the assassins facing her fell before they knew he was on them. As another turned toward him, Mya’s dagger flicked out too fast for anyone but Lad to see. The assassin fell twitching to the ground, his brain disconnected from his spine. But Mya still couldn’t breathe. Her face had darkened, her mouth gaping for air. Lad slashed the writhing end of the chain, severing the handle from the rest, but the chain still constricted her neck, sawing into her flesh like it was striving to cut off her head. Her face darkened further, her eyes bulging from their sockets.

  “Mya! Hold still!”

  Desperate to draw breath, she complied as best she could, deflecting two sword strokes with her dagger while she stood rock steady. Her eyes bulged even further, however, when Lad slashed at her neck with the enchanted blade.

  The katana severed the chain binding her throat. It also cut a half-inch furrow in the muscle of her neck, but that razor-thin wound sealed in seconds. The chain fell in pieces at her feet.

  “Thanks,” Mya gasped as she flicked a fallen sword up to her free hand with her toe. Once again, they stood back to back.

  Lad took a deep, steadying breath—No pain…—and assessed their opponents. More than a dozen assassins still stood against them, but twice that number lay dead or maimed. Not ten feet away, Neera thrashed on the ground, her yellow fingernails digging deep into the mud, her back arched, and her face contorted in a grimace. Lad wondered if the Master Alchemist had taken Moirin’s way out, poisoning herself to prevent capture. He didn’t care; as long as she was dead, his family would be safe. He turned back to the surviving assassins.

  “Your masters are dead! Leave us, and we’ll spare your lives!”

  “We will?” Mya nudged him in the back, and he could hear her malicious grin. “Why?”

  “Because they can’t beat us, and they know it.”

  The assassins exchanged worried glances, some looking to the senior journeymen, others to their fallen masters. They eased back a step…two steps. Several at the outskirts of the crowd turned and bolted, then the rest fled, some quickly, some backing slowly, only breaking into a run at the last moment.

  “You okay?” Mya dropped the sword and touched her hand gently to Lad’s shoulder above the splintered arrow.

  “No, I really don’t think I—”

  A tearing, hacking cough interrupted him. Lad and Mya turned to the pile of thrashing robes where Master Alchemist Neera had lain. What stood up from the robes wasn’t Neera. In fact, it wasn’t even human.

  Chapter XXIV

  Well, damn!” Mya stared as the thing heaved up.

  It stood half again as tall as Lad, and was twice as broad, with massively muscled arms and legs. The silk robes that had clothed Neera tore as the creature straightened, but it wasn’t just its size that shredded the cloth. Its entire body was armored with scales, each bearing an inch-long barb. One backhanded swipe would rip the skin right off a human being.

  “What…is it?”

  Mya heard more disgust than fear in Lad’s voice, which helped to boost her own flagging courage. She felt no pain, but the fatigue of blood loss lay on her like a wet blanket, pulling her down.

  “Neera, I think.” She swallowed hard as the creature reached up one clawed hand to rip away the last clinging vestiges of Neera’s face. A vaguely reptilian visage glared at them, eyes like yellow coals burning beneath a jutting brow. Scaled lips drew back from a broad mouth that sported far too many teeth. They both backed away as the monstrosity stepped forward. Mya dropped the sword, and jerked Youtrin’s axe from Patrice’s corpse. “We could run.”

  “We could, but if it is Neera…” Lad paused, “…she has to die. She knows Wiggen wears the guildmaster’s ring. If she tells the Grandmaster, my family will never be safe.”

  “I thought you’d say something like that.”

  The creature took another six-foot stride forward, eying first Lad, then Mya, as if deciding which of them it should eat first. They both stepped back again.

  “Well, staring at each other won’t so
lve anything.” Mya threw the axe with all her strength, right at its head.

  The blade glanced off its armored brow, whirled in an arc and ricocheted off the scales of its shoulder before returning to Mya’s grasp. The creature had made no effort to dodge, but neither impact had penetrated its armor.

  With a hiss like rain on a tile roof, its mouth gaped, a basketful of daggers. Beneath the forked tongue, Mya glimpsed two fleshy pits that swelled and opened. She shoved Lad away as a spray of yellow liquid jetted forth. The reflexive action struck her as ironic; for the last five years, Lad had been saving her from attacks. But the fact was, she could heal and Lad couldn’t. And she stood a much better chance of surviving this fight if he was alive to fight beside her. She was thinking like an assassin.

  At least, that was what she told herself as acid splashed across her legs.

  The noisome stench of burning flesh, her burning flesh, sent a surge of panic through her. She backed away from the creature and glanced down. The legs of her trousers had melted away in a cloud of noxious vapor. Unfortunately, the magical wrappings, her armor of anonymity, had finally betrayed her. The acid-soaked cloth burned, knitted back together, and burned again, each time searing her flesh anew. In the brief gaps of the writhing cloth, she saw her blistering skin. The magic renewed it, pink and soft, and still etched with runes. Fear ripped through her, for she knew that if too many of her runes were destroyed before they could heal her and reform, the magic would fail.

  Mya slashed frantically at the wrappings with her dagger, peeling them away bit by bit with her fingers before they could knit back together. Her hands blistered, healed, and blistered again. The dagger smoldered as acid pitted the fine steel, and still she slashed, ripped and threw away the acid-soaked cloth. Finally, the saturated wrappings were gone. The flesh on her legs healed, and the runes reformed, shimmering in the streaming rain, their magic intact. She allowed herself a breath of relief.