Her worst fear was confirmed when blue flames stuck to the side of the crate she was against. Ebudae stood and immediately began casting. Blue flames were sticking to everything, including people. To make matters worse, swordsmen were coming down stairs and through the iron doors.
It was then that Ebudae learned exactly how tough the Dralin City Guard was. Frath and Commander Coodmur had blue flames licking their clothes and hair. Ebudae didn’t know if the chain shirts they wore protected against the fire, but there was a good chance the metal would burn the skin. The swordsmen expected easy targets, but found angry and hurt men attacking them.
Sir Imbra and Appana were the only ones who didn’t have fire clinging to them, even though the knight had been closer than anyone. The first man through the door was cut in half by the knight’s greatsword. Frath attacked the next one despite the fact that the left side of his head was on fire. The swordsman only had a second to reflect on the matter until Frath cut him down. Then a rush of swordsmen came in and began to die on the swords of the three men.
Only a part of Ebudae’s mind saw what was happening in the room. Everything else was focused on casting the spell and keeping her balance in the supernatural wind of magic that was swirling around her. It was taking all her power and she had to ignore pain digging into her skull from sticky fire that had landed in her own hair. Fortunately, the sticky fire was disappearing from everything because she was using it for the energy of the spell.
Pelya saw Ebudae casting and stood in front to protect the wizardess. She screamed in agony through clenched teeth because fire was on her clothes and on her hand too. Even though it was disappearing, the fire had burned through skin and nerves. When one of the swordsmen broke past the men and headed toward Ebudae, the young warrior parried a thrust and slashed at the man’s chest. The blade that never dulled cut through the tunic and chain shirt he wore and then into his chest. He stopped and tried to take a step back, but Pelya leaped into the air, reversed the course of her sword and brought it down through his neck. It was the first time she had ever killed a person.
That fact was in a corner of Ebudae’s mind to be dealt with later. All of the fire was gone and she released the spell she had been working on. Everywhere there had been fire, there was now cold water, having been transformed on a level unseen by the human eye. It appeared in a million loud splashes, spraying the room and soaking everything it hit. Ebudae staggered back against the wall behind her, exhausted.
The four remaining swordsmen of Master Thanzin were surprised by it and that surprise cost them their lives. Sir Imbra was nowhere to be seen, but Frath and the weaponmaster didn’t even pause in their fight, each killing one. The third didn’t know who to defend against and fell with fatal wounds by both of their swords.
Pelya had both of her swords out, fighting a man with officer’s insignia. He had gone for the wizardess only to be met by a violent flurry of blades. Frath and Gilron took steps forward, but held their position to let Pelya fight her battle. Appana, bathed in glowing sunlight that seemed to radiate from her, took the opportunity to come up behind them and heal their wounds. The light disappeared as she did so.
The officer was good with the sword, very good. There was already a cut across Pelya’s nose and cheek, causing blood to flow down her face. Frath looked horrified and the only thing holding him back was Gilron’s hand in front of his chest. There was also a diagonal cut on the front Pelya’s tunic, exposing the chain shirt that had protected her belly from being sliced open. She parried his sword and hissed in pain as the tip of it tore through flesh above the knee, causing blood to spray.
But even as she staggered away from the backswing, Pelya was more skilled. For every cut she had, he had three. Blood flowed from a straight cut on his forehead. More leaked from his arms and legs. There was a gash in his tunic as well, the chain shirt was sliced through and covered with blood from a deep wound, indicating that her adventuring sword had made the cut. Ebudae wondered why it didn’t cut through the officer’s sword before realizing that his blade had magical enhancements on it.
She drove the man back, her swords whirling and slashing from every direction. Frath, Gilron and Appana stepped aside to stay out of their way. Sir Imbra came back through the doors with the blood of slain foes covering his armor. He also held back.
The man yelled in fury and made a final, fatal lunge. Pelya danced to the side, driving her adventuring sword up through the chain shirt and his chest. Her primary sword slashed into the side of his neck.
The weight of his body falling dragged her down too and she collapsed, gasping for air. Frath was there instantly to grab her by the arm and help her to her feet. “Well done, so very well done,” he told her. His eyes were still wild from seeing her in danger.
Pelya held onto her primary, blood-covered sword, but lost her grip on the one in the man’s chest because his twitching body lay on it. She was hyperventilating from exertion and the reality that she had just killed the man.
“Slow down your breathing, daughter,” Frath told her gently, standing in front of her and positioning her head so she was looking up at him. “Don’t worry about anything but taking each breath.” His voice was calm and reassuring. Frath had set aside his own feelings to concentrate on her.
The weaponmaster rolled the officer’s body over and pulled out the adventuring sword. His jaw dropped when the blood slid off it. He held the smooth blade up in the light. “Extraordinary.”
“I don’t see any marks on it.” Sir Imbra looked over his shoulder. “It’s not steel or anything else I’ve ever seen.”
Appana approached Pelya, but shock froze her feet. “You’re being healed! Something is healing you and it’s not . . .” She leaned forward, looking closely at the wound in Pelya’s leg visibly closing. “What is it?”
Frath held her at arm’s length and examined the cut on her face that was also healing. “Pelya?” He didn’t know what else to ask.
Ebudae realized that the pain on her skull was only a dull ache. The dragon mark on her back was hot though. The combination of casting powerful spells and being injured was activating it. She had forgotten about it again and had forgotten about Pelya’s for even longer. Pelya’s dragon mark was on the left side from spine to the center of her chest and belly. Ebudae’s mark clamped down on that knowledge as she thought about it.
“Pelya, how are you healing?” Frath asked. The wounds were nearly gone. Her tunic and chain shirt covered the dragon mark completely just as Ebudae’s dress did for her.
Pelya’s mouth shut tight and she shook her head. She was still trying to breathe normally, so it complicated things.
“She can’t tell you,” Ebudae said rapidly. “Don’t ask her again, please.” They all looked at her. Pelya’s mouth was able to open again and she gulped air. Ebudae felt the mark on her back get warmer. “She can’t tell you.”
“What are the two of you?” Appana was right next to Pelya. The priestess had been looking the young woman up and down, but now turned her attention on Ebudae. “Are you human?”
“Yes!” Both girls were indignant at the suggestion.
“What is it that you’re not telling us? You’re healing on your own too.” Appana came over and put a hand in Ebudae’s hair. “Even your pretty hair is growing back before my eyes. This is not normal magic. It is neither from the Gods nor the arcane energies that churn chaotically through air and ground.” She became even more intense. “What are you and how are you healing yourself?”
Ebudae punched her in the face, knocking the priestess to the ground. “Don’t. Touch. Me.” Each word was bitten at the end.
Appana scrambled to her feet with a strangled scream of rage. She brought her staff to bear in Ebudae’s face and it became brighter as she pulled power into it.
“Appana!” Sir Imbra came forward and grabbed the priestess by the waist. “This is not acceptable.”
Ebudae didn’t want to fight the priestess. The woman was a truly good perso
n and Ebudae wasn’t willing to destroy good things in the world no matter how obnoxious they might be.
“Enough!” All eyes turned to the weaponmaster. “We have a mission to accomplish. Personal feelings and who-has-what mysterious powers can be sorted out afterwards.” He handed the adventuring sword back to Pelya. “I don’t know what this sword is, but you wield it well. Right now, I need you to focus on what’s ahead of us. Is that clear?”
Pelya took the sword. “Yes, Commander. I’m ready.” She was still breathing heavily, but stood tall.
“Good. Let’s get going.”
Appana continued to glare at Ebudae, who glared back. Sir Imbra dragged the priestess ahead through the doors, leaving everyone else to follow up the stairs.
As they entered the large, open basement, they came across five more dead bodies lying in awkward positions over pools of blood. Two were human wizards while the other three were swordsmen. “It was smart of them to protect the wizards,” Sir Imbra said. “Useless against me, but still smart.”
“They’re lucky you killed them,” the weaponmaster said as he spat on one of the wizards. “In the Guard we have special ways of dealing with wizards who use sticky fire.” He kicked the other.
“That was despicable,” Sir Imbra agreed. He nodded at Ebudae. “Nicely handled, Milady. Few people ever keep their wits about them long enough to handle sticky fire and fewer still have the power to counter it.”
Appana growled, but kept her tongue. Sir Imbra had a hand on her back, guiding her forward. It was too much for Ebudae. “You obviously have a problem with me, but you seem to be missing the fact that I don’t care what you think.”
“We do not have time for this!” the commander yelled. He stomped forward angrily, leaving them to follow or not. There were passages to other areas of the basement, but he headed towards wide stairs on the other side that led to a large wooden door. Appana and Ebudae set aside their growing dislike once more and followed him along with everyone else. “Have I mentioned that I hate stairs?” the weaponmaster mumbled as he began climbing.
“Not recently,” Frath replied. At the top of the stairs, the weaponmaster raised his foot and kicked the door near the handle. It didn’t budge. Frath came up to him and pushed on the lever. It obediently opened, swinging outward. “We’re opening doors this way now.”
The weaponmaster glared at him as he went through. They followed him into a long marble hallway that had a yellow carpet with flowers down its length. To the left was an intersection of halls and beyond that, a staircase going up. To the right was a set of ornate double doors guarded by seven swordsmen. Thankfully, they seemed to have run out of wizards.
They looked surprised by the appearance of City Guardsmen, a Knight and Priestess of Reanna and two young women. Perhaps they didn’t think anyone would survive wizards, swordsmen and sticky fire and that fact made them nervous.
“Stand back! These are mine!” Commander Coodmur ran at the swordsmen with his hands empty.
Sir Imbra stayed where he was. “All of them?”
“I think so,” Frath said in disappointment.
“That hardly seems fair.” The knight looked sad.
“I know, right?”
Master Thanzin’s men looked confused by the fact that a single man was attacking them. It was as though they didn’t know whether to take it seriously. A few didn’t even have their swords drawn.
Commander Gilron Coodmur, Weaponmaster of the Dralin City Guard was believed to be the most dangerous man in the world by everyone who had trained under him and been knocked to the ground over and over again. It didn’t look like the old, grey-haired man should be dangerous, but his students knew the truth of it.
The officer foolishly standing in front of everyone else learned it to be true as well. He had his sword out and feebly attempted a swing at what he thought was a suicidal man. Commander Coodmur jumped and twisted in midair. The sword passed harmlessly underneath him as he caught the man’s head in both his hands. A simple, but powerful twist broke the officer’s neck.
The weaponmaster landed on the ground behind him and used his momentum to swing the officer around into another, knocking him down. The next person swung a sword only to have his knee broken by a well-placed foot. As he fell to the ground screaming in pain, the commander took his sword away and flung it through the neck of another man a few feet away.
He then tumbled beneath another sword and broke the neck of a man who wasn’t expecting to have to fight yet. A sword whistled above the weaponmaster’s head. He took it away from the fool and gutted another swordsman that attempted to kill him. Then he spun and killed the fool with his own sword. The weaponmaster looked at the blooded steel. “This is a decent sword. Nicely balanced. I approve.” To show how much he approved, the weaponmaster killed the man who tried to charge him from behind. It only took a graceful sidestep and a quick slash to the neck as the man barreled past.
It only left the man with the broken knee. He was on the ground in fetal position, sobbing.
“Show him mercy,” Priestess Appana insisted.
“Good idea!” The commander drew his own sword and brought it down to sever the man’s head with a two-handed blow. The priestess gasped in shock.
“Mercy is the name of his sword,” Frath pointed out too late. “It’s . . . well, it’s an ironic name for a sword.”
“I don’t like any of this.” Appana was clearly miserable. “I don’t like it at all.”
Sir Imbra put an arm around her shoulders protectively. She buried her face in his chest as though it would make the death go away.
None of it fazed Frath. He walked to where the commander was cleaning Mercy on the tunic of a dead man. “Showoff.”
“Hmm?” The weaponmaster looked innocent as an angel despite being covered in blood from head to toe.
Ebudae looked at Pelya who was standing next to her. She was pale, whether from the sight of the bodies or from having killed someone, Ebudae didn’t know. She took her friend’s hand and was rewarded with a weak smile.
Sir Imbra led Appana past the weaponmaster. “I don’t like the way you handled that,” he told the man. “It was poorly done.”
“You don’t get to judge me.” The commander showed no guilt or remorse.
“I don’t like the way everyone’s treating each other!” Pelya blurted out. There were tears in her eyes and everyone turned their attention to her. “I don’t like killing and I don’t like it when my favorite people don’t get along.”
The doors opened. “Is it clear? Holy! . . . What the? . . .” Ebudae recognized the speaker as Master Thanzin. He was staring at the bodies of his men and at the quarreling intruders.
Ebudae had certain spells compartmentalized in her mind. They were ones she considered the most useful in any general situation. One was a spell that seized up all the muscles in a person’s body, preventing them from moving. She cast it at him before he was done stuttering.
Pelya had to catch Ebudae as she became dizzy. Once again, she had reached the limits of her magic. It took a moment, but she shook it off.
Appana was in front of her suddenly and Ebudae took a step back. “Hold still for a moment,” the priestess said. “My behavior has been unacceptable and I apologize.” Ebudae held still as ordered and accepted the soft, healing power that came from the woman’s cool fingertips. “There. That will help.”
It did help. Ebudae felt much better. “Thank you. My behavior was unacceptable as well.” She didn’t think so, but wanted Pelya to be happy.
The men had gone into the room. Frath stood next to Master Thanzin and knocked on his head like it was a door. “I hope you can hear me in there, because I want you to know that I’m very angry at you for threatening my daughters.”
The man’s only reply was to visibly wet himself.
Ebudae held onto Pelya’s arm and they followed Appana into the room. Bookshelves lined the office they walked into. Where there wasn’t a bookshelf, there were expensive
paintings or tapestries. The carpet was rich and all the furniture was the finest quality, especially the enormous hardwood desk in the center.
The word ‘daughters’ kept running back and forth in Ebudae’s mind, but Pelya asked the question first. “Daddy, what did you mean by daughters?”
He shrugged. “Ebudae has been like a daughter to me and she doesn’t seem to have any other family to rely on. Do you mind if I call her that?”
Both girls answered by crashing into his chest at full hug. He held them tight and squeezed them breathless.
“I think we have what we need,” Commander Coodmur told everyone. He stood next to large stacks of logbooks. There was a large fire in the fireplace, but it only had logs. “It seems they didn’t expect us to get this far.”
“That was silly of them.” Sir Imbra smacked him on the shoulder in a friendly gesture.
“I know, right?” They seemed to have let go of their irritation with each other or at least set it aside so they could complete the mission. The weaponmaster began flipping through the books.
Ebudae and Pelya went to sit down on a couch away from the fireplace. Sir Imbra and Frath went to make certain there was no one around to cause problems while Appana followed them to provide support. If they ran across any servants or if Master Thanzin’s swordsmen surrendered, they would have them stay in rooms to be dealt with later. It was unlikely anyone would pose real problems.
Pelya looked miserable. Ebudae wasn’t sure what to say to her, so she patted her lap. Pelya immediately laid her head on it and undid her braid. Ebudae ran fingers through the hair and discovered that a good bit of blood had splattered in it. Her fingers became red and sticky with it, but she didn’t stop, especially when her friend buried her face and began sobbing quietly. It was morbid, but Ebudae had always liked the macabre. A short while later, Pelya was asleep.
Ebudae Page 32
