Benjamin Ashwood Box Set 2

by A. C. Cobble

  “Call more men, General Brinn,” demanded the Veil. “As many as you can find.”

  Her voice sent a shiver down Ben’s spine, and he realized in that moment, despite anticipating the ambush from her old nemesis, the Veil wasn’t certain she would prevail. This woman had held the most powerful seat in Alcott for hundreds of years. She ruled the continent’s most prosperous city. She commanded an army. She had pulled the strings of hundreds of lords and kings in her lifetime, and she was in charge of the largest group of mages that had ever existed.

  And she was scared.

  Her demeanor was calm but her eyes blazed with intensity, the Veil instructed, “General Brinn, after the reinforcements arrive, you should begin to evacuate the Citadel. Clear it first and then the rest of the city. Evacuation on the water would be safest, but back into the mountains will be quicker for those near the top of Whitehall. I suspect we have little time.”

  “I-I can’t do that,” spluttered the general. “We’ve never—"

  “Then prepare for your people to die,” interjected Lady Coatney. She unfastened her belt pouch and drew out a small wooden figurine. A repository of energy, Ben guessed.

  Brinn scrambled to the side of the room and started barking orders at captains, dispatching them to find more men and start the evacuation. Coatney’s eyes remained fixed on Ben’s party, but she did not speak. In moments, alarm bells began to sound, the sonorous hums filling the building with urgency.

  Raising her voice above the clamor, Coatney addressed Ben and his friends, “Thank you for the warning.”

  Ben nodded and looked around the throne room nervously.

  “Ben,” asked Brinn, striding closer, but taking care to circle widely around Lady Coatney’s mages and blademasters, “are you sure there will be an attack?”

  “He believes he is telling the truth,” asserted the Veil, not waiting for Ben to answer. She turned to one of her companions. “Quest. See if you can detect anyone. If she’s brought other mages, we need to know.”

  One of the mages closed her eyes. Amelie and Towaal shivered as Ben imagined a magical sense brushing across them.

  To another of her mages, Lady Coatney said, “In my rooms, there are three man-sized trunks—”

  A cry interrupted her. On the other end of the room, a soldier stumbled back, and a wall of death poured out of dark doorways and across the galleries the highborn occupied when the king held court. Figures cloaked in shadow swept around plush chairs and sprang over the polished railing. Blades, seemingly made of swirling black smoke, sheared through the Citadel’s guards with ease.

  “Mage-wrought swords!” warned one of Coatney’s blademasters.

  Two of the swordsmen advanced side by side. The third remained near Coatney.

  “Avril will kill everyone in this building if she must,” shouted Coatney. “Fight her, or die.”

  Ben grunted and then glanced at Rhys.

  “She’s not wrong,” confirmed the rogue.

  He and Ben jogged forward to join the Sanctuary’s blademasters.

  “Do not allow their weapons to touch you,” warned one of white-cloaked men.

  “Oh, really?” asked Ben, unable to keep the sarcasm from his voice.

  The blademaster didn’t have time to respond. Whitehall’s men were dead, dying, or about to be, and Brinn’s reinforcements hadn’t arrived yet. In moments, the assassins would be done with Whitehall’s men, and Ben, Rhys, and the pair of blademasters were all that stood between them and the Veil.

  “Now’s the time,” suggested Rhys.

  Struggling to believe he was going to do it, Ben charged, rushing forward to protect the Veil from Avril’s assassins.

  His forward motion didn’t last long. A masked figure decapitated one of the remaining guards and spun toward Ben, a dark blade sweeping out. Ben parried the attack and almost lost his sword in the process. Bitter cold flashed down his weapon the moment it touched his attacker’s. He stumbled, the tip of his longsword dropping toward the floor.

  “Harden your will!” he cried. He pushed the chill from his blade, swiveling his hips and swinging his weapon up.

  The assassin, evidently trusting Ben would lose the sword due to the magical effect, wasn’t prepared. The upward blow caught the figure in the chin, cleaving its face in two beneath a black, silk mask. A shower of crimson blood, gray viscera, and white bone burst from the wound, flying across the marble tiled floor.

  Beside Ben, Rhys rammed his longsword into the chest of another assassin, skewering the black-clad shape with his own mage-wrought blade. The figure flopped down dead, and its sword shattered into smoke-filled shards, which melted before Ben’s eyes.

  More assassins, freed from Whitehall’s dying guards, pressed against Ben and Rhys. They were fast, and Ben’s attention was diverted, trying to keep the chill of their enchanted blades from passing through his.

  “There are too many of these bastards,” grunted Rhys, stepping back from where he’d just killed another.

  Ben saw a deep lacerations on the rogue’s upper arm. He couldn’t help his friend, though, as two of the masked men charged him at once. He threw himself toward one of them, hoping to limit the effectiveness of his blade. He then spun, swinging his longsword at the second assailant. Ben felt his longsword catch flesh, but then a forearm wrapped around his neck, yanking him tight and crushing his throat.

  The assassin, pulling Ben close, tried to bring his sword in and slice it across Ben’s face, but Ben got a hand up and slapped it against the assassin’s arm, stopping the weapon and saving his life. The man’s arm was still wrapped around his neck, though, pressing tight and choking him.

  One hand holding off the assassin’s blade, the other holding his own longsword, Ben saw spots clouding his vision. He tried to swing his head back, but the pressure on his neck only increased. He raised his boot and brought it down hard, eliciting a grunt of pain in his ear. He tried it again, but the foot moved, and he felt only hard marble underneath his heel.

  Ben’s grip on the assassin’s arm wavered as his body struggled for air. The smoky blade drew closer. He couldn’t rip his eyes away from the sword. It was like looking at a cloudy sky at night, watching the stars blink in and out from behind a black curtain, except this sliver of night was razor sharp, and it was a hand away from his face.

  In front of Ben, another assassin approached, his shadowy blade held low.

  Ben felt the blood pounding in his head. He knew within moments he would black out. When he did, he’d lose his grip on the assassin’s sword arm. Not that the killer needed the blade to end him. The loss of blood to his head and air to his body would do the job just as well. Ben thrashed helplessly, unable to dislodge the arm from his throat.

  The man in front of him didn’t look content to wait. The assassin drew back, poised to plunge his weapon into Ben’s torso.

  The world slowed down, and Ben could feel each beat of his heart, counting down until the last one. Like he was watching a cube of ice melt in a drink on a hot day, the assassin’s weapon started toward him, aimed at his ribcage where it would slide in and find his heart.

  Pulling on a reserve he didn’t know he had, Ben found clarity in an instant, and he knew what he had to do. He shoved back and then let his legs fall, twisting as he dropped, pulling the assassin behind him off balance, and spinning both of their bodies.

  The man behind him grunted in Ben’s ear as the second assassin’s weapon plunged into him. The arm around his neck loosened, and Ben drew a ragged gasp of air, shrugging his assailant off and stumbling away. He fought off a wave of dizziness and struggled to raise his sword.

  The second assassin yanked his shadowy blade clear of the first, muttering a string of curses. He stalked closer to Ben. Out of the corner of his eye, Ben saw a streak of motion and ducked. A new attacker’s sword whistled a finger-length above his shoulder.

  Falling back, Ben was joined on one side by Rhys, who had picked up several more bloody cuts, and one of the
Sanctuary’s blademasters. The other blademaster was lying face down in a growing pool of crimson.

  “There are too damn many of them,” snarled Rhys.

  “You’ve said that,” responded the Sanctuary’s blademaster.

  Ben glanced over his shoulder to see if any of the mages were in position to assist, and he stopped, staring in confusion. Above the mages, hanging below the ceiling, was a dark, swirling cloud.

  “What is that?” he exclaimed.

  Before Rhys or the blademaster could turn to look, a wave of black-clad attackers hit them. Ben lost track of the magic brewing behind them. The battle in front pulled all of his concentration, but a creeping sense of danger crawled along his spine as he fought. He wondered whether it was the Veil or Avril who was forming the storm.

  “This is ridiculous!” growled Rhys, twirling his longsword and backing away from a pair of attackers.

  Ben darted at one, nicking the figure on the leg, but he couldn’t extend himself far enough to deliver a fatal blow without exposing his sides to the other assailants.

  “Fall back to the mages,” cried the Sanctuary’s blademaster. “There are too many of them for the three of us to face.”

  Ben couldn’t argue. Over a dozen of the assassins remained, and he knew it wouldn’t be long before they slipped a solid strike in against him or his companions. Keeping pace with the blademaster, Ben retreated. If the mages could join the fight, they’d have a chance. If the mages were stuck dealing with the storm, they were going to die.

  “What’s going on up there?” called Ben over his shoulder, his eyes fixed on the assassins swarming in front of him.

  “We don’t know,” shouted Amelie. “It’s not us, though, whatever it is.”

  “Oh.” Ben parried a thrust at his midsection and launched a furious counterattack, pushing the assassin back, but before he could press his advantage, another form tossed a short sword at him. Ben raised an arm to deflect the weapon and felt ice-cold steel slice his flesh.

  The sword bounced away, and blood poured down his wrist. He could barely feel it as the wound was numb from the brutally cold weapon. Ben gripped the hilt of his longsword, hoping he could hold onto it.

  Another attacker, trying to take advantage of Ben’s injury, lunged at him recklessly, and Ben was able to take a chunk out of the man’s shoulder before the figure retreated behind the other assassins.

  “This is not going well,” grumbled Rhys, wiping a stream of blood away from his eyes.

  Suddenly, as one, the attackers stopped and scampered back out of striking distance.

  “Amelie,” warned Ben, thinking something was about to happen above them.

  Instead, a man drifted through the ranks of dark-clothed figures. When he reached the front, he pulled up the silk mask covering his face.

  “Humboldt!” snarled Rhys.

  The man’s eyes were icy blue, and a thin goatee on his chin was styled into a point, making his face look long and sharp. He winked at Rhys and then looked to the Veil.

  “I’ve been asked to request your surrender.”

  Lady Coatney snorted indelicately. “If that bitch wants to talk to me, she can come talk to my face.”

  The assassin stared at her, tilting his head to the side and waiting.

  Lady Coatney frowned. “What does she have planned?”

  Above them, the swirling black clouds of the thunderstorm grew darker and darker. The torches and braziers that lit the chamber danced in the rising wind. The light from outside was smothered to a dim glow, and Ben heard the ominous rumble of thunder rolling over the building.

  He risked a look over his shoulder at the huge, arched windows that lined one side of the throne room. The storm was not just brewing inside. A larger darkness was forming over the entire city of Whitehall.

  The assassin Humboldt inclined his head toward the windows, and Coatney, after whispered instructions to her mages, strode to look out the wall of glass.

  “She thinks to hold Whitehall hostage?” snapped Coatney, spinning to glare at the man. “What will she do if I do not surrender? Will she unleash this storm on the people below? What purpose does that serve! If she means to kill me, then I find it hard to believe that after so many years of planning this is the best she can come up with. My mages and I can protect ourselves against any storm she raises. It’s only the people of Whitehall who will suffer.”

  “A tragedy,” agreed Humboldt, one hand pulling at the tip of his goatee.

  “She means to pin it on the Veil!” exclaimed Amelie.

  The assassin smiled at her. “Yes, she does.”

  “That will never work,” said Lady Coatney slowly. “I don’t care what clues she’s laid, what traps she’s devised, no one will believe that I destroyed Whitehall while standing in the Citadel.”

  “No?” wondered Humboldt. “You of all people know that people will believe nearly anything if you tell them a compelling story. Remember how we told everyone Lady Avril was assassinated? I still recall that day, speaking over the dead body of an innocent girl in Avril’s study. People believed us then, remember? But really, it’s irrelevant if they believe Avril’s story or not. Are you willing to live your life while all of those people die?”

  Coatney stared at the assassin.

  “How many do you think are in town now?” asked the man. “More than usual because of the impending war. Close to a million, I would guess. A million souls is a lot to carry on your conscious.”

  “You think I will surrender up because of… guilt?”

  Humboldt shrugged. “I am merely the messenger, but when Avril asked me, I said I thought you might. You could start by tossing me that repository you’re holding.”

  “Don’t!” cried one of the Sanctuary mages. “She will kill you!”

  “Of course she’d kill me,” snapped Lady Coatney. She looked again out the window. Grim-faced, she raised a hand. With a push of her will, she blew the line of doors open, and swirling wind howled through the room, bringing with it heavy, moisture-laden air. Ben could hear the crashing roar of the clouds outside and felt the building static of an epic storm.

  “When it is done building, that storm will have enough power to destroy Whitehall,” explained Humboldt, speaking loudly to be heard over the sound of the wind. “This place will be an empty stretch of shattered rock and broken forest. Avril has spent decades building the force necessary to call this thing, building it outside of the shipping lanes between here and the South Continent. All she needed was for you to set foot in Whitehall.”

  Lady Coatney glared at the assassin.

  “Given several years,” added the man, “I am certain you could figure out how to safely dissipate this storm. We don’t have that kind of time, though.”

  A second Sanctuary mage stepped close to the Veil. “You cannot do this.”

  Lady Coatney glanced at the woman. “Avril will never take the Veil again, even if she resurfaces with some wild story about how I was behind this attack. No one will believe her… but is my life worth more than the lives of every man, woman, and child below us?”

  The Sanctuary mage swallowed, and Ben could see glistening tears in her eyes.

  Lady Coatney turned toward Humboldt and, over the growl of thunder, demanded, “How do I know Lady Avril will hold up her end of the bargain and release what she has caused?”

  Humboldt opened his mouth, but only a choking gasp escaped his lips.

  Ben blinked and saw the worn hilt of a long knife sticking from his chest. Around Humboldt, the assassins scrambled into defensive postures, their smoky weapons raised.

  “Avril can come tell us herself,” declared Rhys loudly.

  “What did you do?” screamed the Veil, turning on the rogue.

  “Lady Avril,” shouted Rhys, ignoring the red-haired woman, “show yourself! If you want to make an offer, you’ll have to do it in person. There’s no deal unless we get assurances from your lips.”

  A soft chuckle, barely audible over the g
rowing storm, came from behind the throne. General Brinn jumped in surprise as a young woman stepped out and brushed by him.

  “After all of these years, Rhys, you still know me well, or did you merely take an opportunity to murder Humboldt? You never did get along with him.”

  “I don’t care about Humboldt,” snarled the rogue. “I knew you wouldn’t set this bloody ambush and not watch it happen. Can you release this storm, Avril?”

  The girl’s red lips curled in a smile. “Why did you kill Humboldt instead of just calling for me?”

  “He was an asshole,” snapped Rhys. “Is that what you want me to say?”

  Lady Coatney stepped forward, and her mages formed a knot behind her. Even Ben could feel the growing power around the women, and he could see swirling energies forming. He stepped back, knowing that whatever they were building was beyond his ability to protect himself against.

  “If you kill me, or even try, I may lose control of what is building outside,” mentioned Lady Avril coolly, her eyes lingering lazily on the blood and bodies that littered the floor. “The blood of so many really would be on your hands then, Coatney. Besides, do you really think I would step into the open if I thought I was vulnerable to your attack?”

  From her belt, she drew a slender knife.

  “A repository,” hissed Towaal.

  A store of power. A lot of power, if Ben judged the look in the Veil’s eyes accurately. She appeared more nervous now than she had when she first opened the doors to look at the storm.

  “My offer still stands, Coatney,” said Avril. “Surrender, and the city shall be spared. Fight, and a million innocents will die. You might be right. It’s possible no one will believe you did this, though I’ve been working hard to build evidence showing you did. Even if the world does not believe it, you will know. You didn’t cause it, but you could have prevented it. You could have saved so, so many lives. Isn’t that why you stole power from me, to save lives?”

  “You are insane!” accused Lady Coatney.

  Ben was so entranced by the battle of words between the two Veils that he did not notice Amelie taking his side until she whispered in his ear, “Ben, the sandstorm in the desert. How did you do it?”