By Blood Hunted: Kingsblood Chronicles Part Two (The Kingsblood Chronicles Book 2)

by David J. Houpt

  And they didn’t just copy and mimic the other races. They innovated. They invented. They built upon what the other civilizations had achieved, and they grew dangerous. And we were too arrogant to see it.

  -- “Disdain’s Cost,” translated from Aesidhe, written by the Vileni Sage Gwylan, c. 121 PE, after the sack of Loe’than by the Pelorians

  The enemy wizard-assassin was still keeping track of him, it was clear, but with not nearly as much devotion. As Wavecrest made her way west, Celewyn only felt the scryer’s touch a few times a day, and only for a few moments’ time.

  Has he drawn complacent because I’m stuck on this ship? Celewyn wondered. Or does he wish me to grow complacent? With a frown, he rejected that idea. It implied that his unknown hunter was aware that Celewyn was conscious of being observed, and he’d used every bit of his talent at deception to conceal this.

  I can’t stop him from taking the figurine unless I manage to kill him during the attempt, the Avani elf thought. He’d placed contact poison on the figure, but he had little hope that it would snare his rival. In the reverse position, he’d certainly assume the thing to be poisoned and take appropriate precautions.

  He was aware that he might be giving his opponent too much credit, that the other assassin hadn’t acted simply because he didn’t know about the frog and lacked enough information to simply attack and try to take it. That his only choice was to follow Celewyn and try to end up with the credit for Lian’s death. But he’s not watching me every second because he already knows how I’m following Lian, Celewyn thought. He knows about the frog, and he’s waiting for an opportunity.

  The elf took in a deep breath and made a decision. I can’t protect Lian from this man or woman, he thought. He will have to face this on his own, and by the gods, I wish I had some means of sending him a warning… But Celewyn possessed a great deal of information that he was certain his quasi-competitor did not have access to, since it was information that only Elowyn and Celewyn knew. And though it grieved him to recall it, he knew that his brother was far beyond the reach of any spell to wrest the knowledge from him.

  I don’t know if Lian still has access to the necromancer and the sword-spirit, he conceded, but there’s not much I can do about it if he doesn’t. It seemed almost the cowardly path, what he now planned, but he needed to find Lian above all other considerations, and the prince would simply have to fend for himself. If he pushed his adversary into killing him in order to get the figurine, he would fail at his primary objective.

  I have to let him take it, he thought, hating the thought for a number of reasons, not all of which involved protecting Lian. And if Lian gets it, if he keeps it, I won’t be able to track it any longer. He’d built the other two little frog-figures to track the first one, but if it was in Lian’s keeping it would be within the shroud of the Key of Firavon, and no magic Celewyn possessed could hope to pierce that veil.

  Self-doubt wasn’t one of the elf’s usual faults, and he forced it from his mind. Time to give him his opportunity, then, he thought, rising from his meditation to procure a bowl of water.

  ^ ^ ^ ^ ^

  Not normally vulnerable to seasickness, Ammon was surprised to learn that locked inside a small compartment with no ability to see the waterline or sky at the very aft end of Wavecrest, that he could fall prey to it after all. He worked out a spell to counteract it, not having ever had the need to learn one prior to this perhaps ill-conceived trip, and after a half-day he felt much better.

  It was also very difficult to scry Celewyn from inside this thrice-damned box, since he couldn’t use the water bowl that was his preferred focus. Instead, he used a silvered mirror he’d purchased in Kavris for this purpose, and even after a few moments’ time observing Celewyn it would overcome the anti-seasickness enchantment and fill him with a sense of vertigo. It wasn’t like Celewyn was going anywhere in a hurry, after all, so the need to watch him carefully was much less vital. He still needed a good look at the figurine—hells, he didn’t even know if it was a frog or not—but there would be time.

  It was with great pleasure, then, merely five days out from Kavris, that Ammon looked into Celewyn’s private cabin (formerly the chief and second mates’ cabin) and saw the elf making preparations to use the figurine.

  Finally! Ammon thought, the clear image from the cabin showing Celewyn carefully filling a deep bowl with a portion of water for the cork. Producing what proved to be, indeed, a jade frog, the Avani assassin placed it carefully on the bobbing cork, making sure it was floating well-balanced and wasn’t going to fall into the rocking water.

  It’s like a Navigator’s compass, except somehow it points always at Lian, Ammon realized almost instantly, for Celewyn made no incantation or obvious mystical passes over the thing. Safe in the confines of his cabin, the elf had wedged the bowl in between two blocks of wood on his bunk so it would stay put.

  This allowed him to open up a chart on the table he’d had the captain put in the cabin before the ship’s departure, recognizably one of the southern continent’s coastline. He oriented it properly to true north (how, Ammon couldn’t say) and then noted the frog’s heading carefully. Ammon could see marks on the map showing Wavecrest’s movement out of Kavris, with an additional mark showing the relative bearing gathered from the frog’s facing. Wavecrest was not bearing dead on Indigo Runner (if Lian was still on her and not on some other ship), but a number of degrees more southerly.

  Interception, perhaps? Ammon pondered, wishing he was more of an expert on navigation but thinking that Celewyn was tracking a southing course.

  Doesn’t matter, Ammon said to himself with a smile. It was clear that Celewyn was using the frog regularly, and further, his attention was off of the thing for the crucial few seconds he’d need to capture it. A part of him was disappointed he wouldn’t get to try his martial skills against the Avani, but he admitted to himself that part of him was relieved. He’d killed elves in his career, and most of them did not go easily, having had long centuries to perfect their combat skills. Not every elf was a practiced warrior, but he knew this one certainly was!

  Still, Ammon’s little present might kill him anyway, which might be a good thing if Celewyn were revenge-minded. He won’t take revenge for this, though, Ammon reassured himself with a sardonic half-smile. If he ever learned who did it and met me in neutral circumstances, I think he’d compliment me on my efforts. Celewyn was a professional’s professional, a thought that widened Ammon’s face into a true smile. It was a romantic notion in a decidedly unromantic career path.

  But that won’t stop him from killing me if I slip up, the Easterner reminded himself. At that moment, Celewyn carefully plucked the frog off the cork and replaced it somewhere on his person, and Ammon broke the connection to begin his preparations. It was going to be more challenging to perform the scrying aloft, but Celewyn had made a second mistake beyond letting Ammon get a drop of his blood: he’d chosen a cabin with a window on the aft end of the ship, just like the captain’s cabin, which was housed to starboard of it. This would have been much harder with a below-deck cabin.

  I hope he checks the damned thing more than once a day, the wizard thought, or it’s going to be a long day indeed.

  ^ ^ ^ ^ ^

  Once Celewyn felt the contact break, he took the frog back out of his pack and quickly repainted it with the potent—and jade green—poison he’d selected. He wore gloves during the act he’d put on for the enemy mage but hidden them under illusion, and he hoped the other assassin was too overconfident to worry about such things.

  He’d sat waiting for the feel of the scrying for hours, the pitcher in his hand and the bowl set up for the bearing check process. As soon as he’d felt the enemy’s eyes upon him, he’d begun pouring, his elven stamina making the pour smooth and without a tremble to give away the fact he’d been waiting.

  He carefully placed the now-deadly little frog in an empty walnut shell and back into his belt pouch. It wouldn’t do to get the poison on his o
ther possessions. He’s going to shatter the window and then spell the frog off the cork and into his hand, the assassin thought. He’ll throw something nasty into the room at the same time, something he’s prepared ahead of time, just in case he can kill me without too much exposure.

  He supposed that the other might still make a mistake, especially since he’d have to be flying invisibly astern of Wavecrest, maintaining those magics while carrying out the rest. Or he might teleport into the room, which would be the best possibility to overturn the attack. After all, he thought sardonically, if I don’t try to stop him, he’s going to wonder why, and I want him believing he’s gotten away cleanly. Now all he had to do was wait until the mage took another look at him, then choose an appropriate time to repeat what he’d just done for the assassin’s benefit.

  ^ ^ ^ ^ ^

  Protected by a powerful unseeing spell, Ammon made his way carefully out of the steering gear compartment and up on deck next to the helmsman. The spell ensured that the crew wandering about the ship at their various tasks would miss him. It wouldn’t have fooled Celewyn’s senses, but Ammon could still feel the relative position of the elf to himself; he was almost directly below him.

  Taking care to note the movements of the crew—having one bump into him now would be a joke of cosmic proportions—he stretched himself out and made sure his weapons, especially the bundle of poison powder, were ready. Other than the poison bundle, he didn’t plan to need any of his weapons, but it always paid to be prepared in this business. Once he was ready, he activated the primed spell he’d woven into his cloak and rose up and back off the caravel.

  He’d waited for about ten hours after the last observation, figuring that the elf was probably taking a bearing no more than twice a day; the marks on the map, roughly ten or twelve in number, had seemed to support that assumption. It was going to be grueling to watch Celewyn for at least two more hours while he kept the flight spell in effect, and then to break the connection and quickly cast the glass-shattering spell (fortunately only two notes) and exchange the powder satchel for the frog… It was going to require very careful execution and skill, but he was going to get the frog, and quite possibly the Shadow, too.

  In the cabin, moments later, Celewyn felt the faint touch of scrying magic that signaled his opponent was watching him. The temptation to set the frog up immediately was strong, but he quelled it without effort. To act too quickly, to play into the other assassin’s hand too well, would arouse his suspicions, and the Avani needed him to be confident in the next hour or two. Instead, as if nothing was out of the ordinary whatsoever, the Avani went through the aythra moves he could perform in the limited space of the cabin. It was fairly calm, and he was able to contort himself into a few of the more difficult poses against the ship’s motion. By practicing the martial art he was able to keep his mind clear and his reflexes honed for what was to come despite knowing that death would stalk through the aft window in a short time.

  Whether the Serpent Whose Kiss Ends All would claim him or not remained to be seen, but the Deathlord would be in the room with Celewyn and also hovering next to his foe, ready to punish either of them for a single slip.

  Roughly thirty minutes before sunset, Celewyn completed his session and poured some of the pitcher of water over his head to cool off. Though it didn’t reach his face or body, he was amused despite himself, for he imagined his opponent would have gotten excited when he lifted the pitcher, and then annoyed that he used it so. He carefully toweled himself off, drying especially his hands, and he fetched out the map, carefully aligning it to true north with a small humming melody that let him sense the planet’s axis. Assuming Wavecrest didn’t alter course, his use of the frog would give him a true bearing.

  The moment is very close now, he thought, preparing himself for whatever might come through that window. He’ll be under unseeing or true invisibility and probably out of line of sight above the ship… With his usual precision, he poured the water into the bowl and placed the cork afloat in it, and without hesitation that might give himself away—despite his age and experience, the urge to hesitate was nearly overpowering—produced the frog and placed it on the cork, pointing in a direction close to the expected bearing.

  Almost time, Ammon thought from his flying vantage point as he sweated through the focus of three different spells at once. The flight and unseeing spells he was used to maintaining at the same time, but holding the scrying spell simultaneously was more taxing than he’d expected. It was fortunate that the elf had chosen to take a bearing this evening, since he couldn’t have held all three spells through the night.

  As soon as Celewyn released the frog figurine onto the cork, he moved over to the map to pick up his writing instrument. In that same moment, Ammon dropped the scrying spell and gathered his magical power quickly, uttering the two-tone shattering spell. The glass window at the stern end of the mate’s cabin shattered, falling down in glittering cascades both inside the ship and out. The window over the captain’s cabin cracked all the way across, port to starboard, from the sharp tones backed by Ammon’s magical power.

  The Easterner then sang his other spell, the one that would let him exchange the unattended figurine with the satchel of poisoned powder. The spell had been difficult to create, since he’d never had a completely unhampered view of the miniature, but he’d done it, and in a few short seconds the satchel was in flight toward the frog. If the Avani had still been touching the frog, this wouldn’t have worked, but by “abandoning it,” he made it easier for Ammon’s spell to grab it.

  The powder’s satchel was coated in an enchanted substance that would explode on contact with freshwater, but not saltwater, and once it neared the frog it would drop into the bowl, while the frog would fling its way back to his gloved hand. He was hovering high above the window, for he did not need line of sight for the satchel/frog substitution spell to function properly.

  It was this sharp angle that saved his life. Celewyn, to his surprise, almost immediately leapt to the window frame, his hand nearly grasping the frog as it flew (fortunately for Ammon, much faster than the satchel had done). The elven assassin ignored the shards of glass still embedded in the frame, though his feet must have taken a number of lacerations through his soft leather boots. The moment he saw that the frog was out of reach, Celewyn swung to port, away from the window, as the noxious fumes began pouring out behind him. The elf’s gaze quickly swept the sky on the frog’s path and settled on Ammon’s form nearly immediately.

  Ammon had expected the Shadow to be fast, but the elf moved as if he was the blurred wings of a hummingbird, he was so quick. Worse, his eyes were sharper—far sharper, Ammon thought—than the human’s. Knowing the unseeing wouldn’t help, the Eastern assassin dropped it and focused more power on the flight spell, adding altitude as quickly as possible given the flight spell he’d chosen. Unfortunately, he’d chosen it for the ease of maintaining it, not for performance, and he climbed a good deal more slowly than he would have liked.

  Below, Celewyn shouted, “Man overboard!” loudly in the Southron tongue as he seemed to rise to his feet nearly diagonally out from the carved and engraved port wall of his cabin. The motion allowed him to use his full strength to throw his dagger, and it arced unerringly toward Ammon’s retreating form.

  “Dear gods!” Ammon exclaimed as he watched the elf fall into the sea away from Wavecrest. He’d actually stood on the wall of the ship to throw, knowing he’d go into the water! The bright pain of the slash along the outside of his thigh was a sudden shock, along with the immediate jolt of terror the wound created. It had missed hitting any major arteries or veins, but it was undoubtedly poisoned, and Ammon’s heart pounded in fear.

  To the Easterner’s amazement, Celewyn had allowed himself to go into the sea to throw the weapon true, and the dagger had cut through the mage’s standing defenses like they weren’t even there. At least he’s in the water now, Ammon thought as he fought to stay calm. Whatever venom was now coursing th
rough his veins probably didn’t need much help to kill him, and panic would only hasten it. Out of range of any further attacks from Celewyn, he took the time to calm himself and focus. Uttering another spell clearly and precisely, Ammon vanished from the air above the ship and stepped across space to his apartments in Kavris.

  The healer he’d had the foresight to hire shrieked as he appeared, the displacement of air making a short and temporary wind in the conjuring circle he’d warned her not to enter for any reason. His teleportation spell would have displaced him into empty air had she been occupying that space, it was true. But he had not known how desperate he’d be when he appeared in the room or whether the flying spell would still be in force. He didn’t relish the thought of a fall from the apartment’s height if the spell had displaced him through the wall and over the flagstones far below, so he’d warned her harshly to stay away from the circle.

  In the Southron tongue, he snapped, “I’ve been poisoned, hurry woman!” His skill with healing magic had never been strong, and he knew if he had to rely upon that he’d probably die. I may still die, he thought a little hysterically. The elf had moved faster than an enraged puff adder, demonstrating a far better reaction time than Ammon had expected.

  I thought I was making a pessimistic estimate of his ability to react to the attack! he thought, stunned that he was wounded and stunned even more by the fact that the elf had been so far beyond his own physical capabilities. Thank Ashira I didn’t decide to just try to knife him.

  The healer began singing songs to retard the unknown poison’s progress, and he worked to still his heart and aid her. It was going to be a long night, but even the fastest poisons required some time to work and he’d gotten to help within mere seconds. If she couldn’t save him, he probably couldn’t be saved.

  In his hand, he gripped the little frog figurine carefully. No doubt poisoned as well, the assassin thought. He’d wash the item carefully after ascertaining that water wasn’t damaging to the enchantment or physical structure of the frog. After all, Celewyn had always been very cautious about letting it touch the water in the bowl. With no idea how far away the Wavecrest was from Lian’s location, now was not the time for caution, and as soon as he could get moving he would hasten to the prince’s demise. That thought made him smile despite his fear of the Shadow’s poison.