The three took deep breaths, as they felt the familiar effects of adrenaline coursing through their systems.
“Did they cut either of you?” Nim asked, checking to make sure his companions had not taken even a scratch. “You can never tell what those bastards have on their blades...” With that thought, another struck him, “...where's Victor?!”
Jenn looked around, embarrassed that she hadn't thought about Nim's ward. “I don't… I don't know. Last I saw him he was headed toward his room for bed.”
Nim ran down the hall, past the stairwell, and around the corner. He barely slowed down as he turned the nob and opened the door to Victor's room. He realized several steps into the room that he may have made a mistake as he heard several weapons being unsheathed. Coming to a fast stop he flipped backwards towards the door he had just entered as four daggers flew through the air he had occupied half a second before.
Four men stood in the room, one in each corner, obviously waiting for their target to return. He heard one of them swear as one of the errant blades that had been thrown connected. Four men for me and four for Victor? Someone wants us dead badly. Why send four for the boy though? Nim wasn't given time to dwell on these thoughts before three assassins began to carefully move towards him. The fourth fell over, no longer able to use his legs as whatever neurotoxin that coated the blade already quickly working through his system. If the assassins had come straight for him, they might have taken him out, but their cautious approach gave Bartholomew and Jenn time to enter the fight.
“Go make sure the girls are safe Jenn, and find Victor.” Nim heard Bartholomew say to Jenn as he entered the room.
“But..” Jenn replied, obviously hesitant to leave them alone against three men.
“Just do it Jenn, if they are being attacked they are going to need your help more than we will. Besides, these men aren't nearly trained enough to take us out.” Bartholomew entered the room slipping past Nim to his right, and immediately began assaulting the nearest assassin.
Nim heard Jenn pause, and could feel her eyes on his back. “Go!” he yelled. She turned and ran, and he let out a sigh of relief. He had taken her in several years ago, and then allowed Ashur to train her when she had made it apparent that she was going to be getting into trouble one way or the other. She had quickly become overprotective of him, and had taken it upon herself to ferret out any potential dangers against him. Nim knew that she was infatuated with him, maybe even in love with him, but he also knew that she knew that he could never love her as long as Erin was out there somewhere.
Nim focused on the lights in the room and they came to life, disorienting the assassins who had been sitting in the dark. He struck out at the man on his left and scored a small gash on the man's arm. Nim ran up the wall and cartwheeled over his opponent, landing behind the assassin, severing the man's spinal column in one smooth motion. Bartholomew was losing ground to the two assassins that had decided to gang up on the older opponent, once again underestimating the old butler.
“Interesting night sir.” Bartholomew calmly held the two men back, his sticks whirling in front at blinding speed, creating an impenetrable barrier.
“Yes, quite a night. Did you take their coats as they came in?” Nim laughed as he began to move around behind the two assassins.
“Sadly no sir, they seem to have no manners.” Thinking for a moment he added, “but at least their shoes are clean.”
Nim laughed again as the two assassins involuntarily looked down at their shoes. At that moment an explosion went off over their heads. Taking advantage of the explosion Bartholomew made an attack with each hand, sending a stick heading towards the temple of each assassin. One of the assassins avoided the attack, but his companion was not so lucky, crumpling to the ground in a heap. Unfortunately for the man who avoided Bartholomew's attack he stepped right into Nim's blade, impaling himself.
“Go check on Jenn and the girls, I'll head to the roof and see who's trying to blow up my home.” Nim ran towards the stairs leading to the roof as Bartholomew took off in the direction that Jenn had run off shortly before.
Earlier, on the roof
Victor found himself unable to sleep, he and Nim were scheduled to travel the lines of power with the army in the morning. At the beginning of the month the talks about the troop transition that would begin on the first of Ragnós. If he would have been told three Eighthdays ago that he would be traveling with the Knights he wouldn't have believed it. After the month he had gone through however he no longer doubted.
Sleep eluding him Victor decided to go outside and get some air. Throwing on his clothes, and his dagger belt and the bandolier of daggers that High Commander Cantel had given him less than a Eighthday ago. When he reached the roof he realized that he had put on his weapons automatically, something he would not have done two Eighthdays ago. Nim had taken him back to each council meeting, and Victor now knew things that no one outside the council knew. His attendance had a side effect that he had not expected and he had been given attention by several of the council members over the past four Eighthdays.
The first one to come calling had been the Arch Magus himself. He had impressed upon Nim, in more than a few words, the fact that Victor would be best served by being tested and given training by the Mages. To Victor's dismay Nim had agreed on letting the Mages take him for a Eighthday. In that time he was tested, given a dozen books on Shaping that he was supposed to memorize, and taught how to safely test the limits of one's abilities. He was taught the basics on how to focus his Shaping in combat quickly, with deadly results, from Zander Halcyon; Who seemed to take especially well to the young boy. He had come back to Nim's manor after that Eighthday feeling like he was ready to collapse.
Victor was only given half a day of rest by Nim before he took him out into the caverns beneath Safeharbor for a three day excursion. During this time Nim built upon the things that Victor had learned about skulking from his time as a thief. He refined Victor's talent at manipulating shadows to make them look more natural, and how to use a cushion of air around the feet to reduce the noise made. Before the three days began Victor had thought that he knew quite a bit about how to sneak around unnoticed, at the end of the three days he realized he had a lot more too learn still. There were some things that Victor had been taught during those three days that he didn't want to think about, but he knew deep down that someday they would be useful. Victor slept very well the night they had gotten home from their excursion, more from exhaustion than anything else, he just wished he could have been given another day or two to rest before more people came to take up his time.
The next morning High Commander Cantel and High Lieutenant Commander Theromvore stopped by, telling Nim that he should have the boy train with the knights, especially if he was going to go with the army at the beginning of the month. Nim had not even told Victor that he was going to take him with them at that point, and he made the Commanders promise not to let their deduction slip into the wrong ears. They agreed, on the condition that Victor go with them until they were ready to leave. Which would have been fifteen days; they settled on eleven. For nine of those days Victor spent ten to fifteen hours a day training with High Commander Cantel, High Lieutenant Commander Theromvore, or General Theromvore. The last two days had consisted of a fourteen hour session of riding lessons from Rigel north, and a twelve hour sailing lesson on a patrol boat with Abe Swiftflow, on what seemed to Victor to be an unusually stormy day. At the end of those fifteen days he knew that he had reached the end of his energy reserves.
Each person had pushed him in a different way, the Knights and Mages had been training kids for thousands of years and knew how to safely test the limits. On the off chance that they had miscalculated, there was always a cleric nearby, just in case. The last three days Victor had done little more than sleep, eat, read, and practice his forms. Nim had him practicing his sword exercises and working with his throwing daggers, but these were things Victor enjoyed doing so it had been like
heaven compared to the previous twenty six days.
He was watching the stars and thinking about the previous month when he heard a noise from the garden. There were wards all around the mansion to protect from intruders and to catch harmful spells, and the sound he heard reminded him of a ward being dispelled. He relaxed his mind, probing the different energies in the area like the Arch Magus had taught him, and found that the barriers were missing on the wall directly below him in the garden. It was then that he noticed the energies of the fifteen men coming up the wall where he was standing. With so little warning all that Victor could do was throw his cloak around himself and blend into the shadows in the corner of the roof. Seconds after he made his hiding place men in dark clothing began to come over the top of the wall, he knew it was going to be a long night.
He watched as they made basic communications to one another through hand signals, and could do nothing but watch as eleven of the men crept down into the mansion using the door he had unlocked. Victor silently thanked Nim for his lessons as the four men canvased the roof looking for anything out of the ordinary. Finding nothing the four men took up watch positions around the roof. Victor thought hard about what he might be able to do against them, but he knew that he was no match physically for any of these men yet. He might be able to surprise one or two of them, but then the other two would surely capture or kill him. Thinking it his only options Victor slowly began to pull in energy, hoping that something would draw the men in together. It couldn't have been more than ten minutes, even though it felt like much longer to Victor, when sounds of battle began to be heard from below.
The four men on the roof stood frozen listening to the sounds. After the battle had been going on for a few minutes, moving to different rooms all around the manor, one of the men on the roof motioned for the other three to go downstairs and assist their associates. Victor knew from the pitched battles he could hear below that he couldn't allow them to do that. Focusing the energy he had gathered into a condensed ball of potential energy, he rolled it along the ground as one might a marble. When the ball reached the area where the three men were converging he used a blast of air to toss it into the air. The difficult part of this Shaping was keeping the explosion contained, feeding it with as much energy as you could before it became too much for the shield around it to hold. A skilled Shaper could make a much larger explosion, but he hoped that his skill was sufficient for what he needed to do this night. One of the men saw the bead of energy as it bounced into the air before them, but at that point it was already too late. As the shield released the air itself fed the conflagration turning it into a giant ball of fire. It burned hot enough to melt an inch of the stone roof in a ten foot circle before disappearing. All that was left of the three men were three twitching charred corpses.
Victor didn't have enough time to process what he had just done as he realized that the shadows had slipped as he focused on the explosion, and the leader of the group was now running towards him, preparing to let a dagger fly.
Realizing he didn't have time to do anything but dodge, he put all of his effort into not getting hit. Victor rolled to his left as the dagger came flying through the air and felt the wind from the projectile as it just barely missed his head. As he came out of his roll he unsheathed his daggers, and had them into position to block the man's first attack. A small part of him was thinking Stewart Cantel for his lessons in knife fighting.
Victor put everything he had into thwarting the man's attacks, and avoiding those sharp, surely poisoned, blades. After dueling with the High Commander, this man's movements seemed sloppy and slow, but Victor knew that he would not be able to keep up his defense for very long. Not only was the man much larger than Victor, but he also had much more fighting experience. It was only a matter of time until the man got over his initial surprise and did something Victor could not react fast enough to stop. He made a feint, drawing the man into overextending enough that Victor managed to roll between the man's legs, cutting the mans thigh on his way through. Knowing that he had just made the man angry he began to take in more energy and form it into a barrier around himself. By the time the man turned around it was in place, and it was a lucky thing too, because the man threw another dagger at that moment.
This was a Shaping that Zander Halcyon had taught him, he said that it was the basic spell that any Mage would need to protect himself and his brothers and sisters. After compressing more energy than he had ever used into the explosion that killed three of the attackers Victor knew that he was pushing his mind more than he should. Zander said that once he was stronger he would be able to set the shield so it would absorb a certain amount of damage and then flicker out, but he was no where near that skill level. Victor would have to keep channeling energy to the shield, and each time the man hammered on the shield he felt more and more exhausted.
Out of the corner of his eye he saw a movement from the stairwell. He was just about to run away when the man in front of him suddenly stopped attacking his barrier and fell to the ground, a dagger sticking out of his chest. Victor didn't have enough time to even feel relieved before he blacked out, the last thing he saw was Nim running towards him.
*****
Year 3043 AGD
Month of Ragnós
Morning of the First Day
Continent of Terroval
Safeharbor
Nim's Mansion
“Is he going to be ok?”
“Yes, he's just tired. He'll be fine in a couple of hours.”
Victor heard a sigh of relief, but he couldn't open his eyes or move. Maybe I'm dreaming. Hmm… I wonder where I am.
“What about Megan?” The first voice asked.
“The poison is moving too quickly, and it is aided by magic. The four men who went to Victor's room were the only ones that seemed to have neurotoxin on their blades, the rest all had some kind of poison. I don't think they will be able to do anything for her at the church even. Whoever hired them wanted only the boy alive.” Victor liked the voice that was speaking, but it didn't sound familiar. He was trying to remember who Megan was, but all that he kept seeing was the color green. He gave up trying to remember as the voices started again.
“Jenn maybe you should go talk to Lia, or just be with her, she's going to need a friend it seems.” I know that voice. Victor tried hard to bring up an image, but his mind was not cooperating, it was as if his thoughts were covered in a heavy fog.
“Ok Nim.” A female voice said. That must be Jenn, a small part of his mind whispered, still unable to put a face to the name.
“He should be awake by mid-morning I've done all I can, he pushed himself much further than he should have. I gave him something to help with the disconnect.”
Victor heard the door open and the room was silent for a while. A short while later, he heard footsteps coming toward him. They're back! His mind cried out, and he tried to move, tried to open his eyes, but found himself unable to do either. I won't let you kill me! He screamed inside his head, finally getting a response from his body, even if it was just to thrash violently in his bed.
“Calm down Victor it's just a bad dream.” It was that familiar voice again.
Victor stopped trying to move realizing that his mind had overreacted. Feeling safe again Victor fell into a restless sleep, his mind replaying the explosion he had created over and over again.
Chapter 13
Saying Goodbye
Year 3043 AGD
Month of Ragnós
First Day
Continent of Terroval
City of Safeharbor
Victor woke up feeling like a box had been dropped on his head from two stories up. Looking around the room he was in, it took him a moment to realize that it was Nim's room. Nim was pacing by the window overlooking the garden, deep in thought. Victor watched his mentor pace, using the techniques he had learned from this very man to judge what he was thinking. He appeared to be mostly worried, but there was also a look of resolution mingled withi
n. Deciding it was probably less rude to let him know he was awake Victor stretched and gave an overemphasized yawn that wanted to work it's way out anyway. Nim quickly turned towards Victor.
“You're awake!” Nim said. “Well of course you're awake, that was a stupid thing to say.” Victor knew at this point that Nim was really worried, the man was usually much more in control of his thoughts.
“Yes, and my head hurts, and now that I think about it, everything else hurts too.”
“Well, Father Telenroy said that you had exhausted yourself by performing things that were beyond your capacity to handle...” Nim said, admonishment strong in his voice, before taking on a softer tone. “...I however, am glad you managed to do so long enough for help to come.”
“I'm pretty glad about that myself.” Victor replied. “It was the first thing that came to mind. I knew I wasn't good enough to beat him yet.” Then he grinned. “Not from lack of skill just from lack of size. I think I could have whittled away at him slowly, but I didn't have enough energy left to last long enough to find out.” Frowning he said, “I don't think I could have held that shield much longer though. Two more swings and I doubt we would be having this discussion right now.”
“Well my young friend, you killed one more assassin than Jenn did… and she's not happy about that fact.”
“How many did you get?” Victor asked dryly.
“Well… counting the one you wounded. Six. Now, if you count the one that Bartholomew drubbed into unconsciousness, it will be seven around noon.”
“Bartholomew drubbed someone into unconsciousness?”
“Oh yes, he was once one of the head monks of the Order of the Griffon. They are a migrant order that travels throughout Terroval. The head of the order told him that he should find someplace to serve in a humble capacity in order to learn humility. So he came to me asking to be my butler. Having fought with him before and knowing he could handle himself in most any situation, I accepted. Probably not quite what the Grand Master had in mind, but he's humble enough... most of the time.” Nim laughed as he finished his statement, but the laugh sounded forced. Victor knew Nim was avoiding talking about something, but he didn't know why.
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