Issacor's hands tightened on Faith-Be-Forgiven as he approached, moving as lightly as one could in heavy armor.
Another small whimper came from inside the wagon. Instantly, the huge sword was swung up and over his shoulder, falling easily into a ready position, still in its sheath. He slipped into a stance meant for powerful lunges as the door started to open.
To his relief, it opened, not on a dangerous assassin, but on Layaka, Brin's temporary ward. She was still dressed in the training leathers Kaiel bought for her. It seemed likely that Kaiel had been working on teaching her to wear it better. Instead of the hasty, sloppy manner he usually saw her wearing the tan breeches, war kilt and jerkin in, she wore them with military precision. The jerkin and legs of the pants were laced in proper, crisscrossing fashion and tied with firm knots, the war kilt was buckled properly around her waist instead of hanging off her hips, and all the pieces looked freshly cleaned and oiled. This was covered by an old, worn evening coat; the kind worn by Nov soldiers when the weather grew cold.
She was coming out of the wagon with little Raleian under her arm, leading Mostsetiel by the hand. Issacor knew Rale and Motsey well, as when not with their parents, the children could be found climbing about on their oversized aunt Taylin. Issacor frowned at the picture in front of him. Rale seemed to be asleep while Motsey seemed to be forcing himself to hold in tears.
The child spied Gruwluff on the ground and failed to contain a whimper from a fresh batch of sobs in his throat.
Issacor looked down at the wolf again. In the light from the open door, he could see that the wolf wasn't sleeping; it was laboring to breathe. Something had carved deep, straight gashed down its back, which oozed dark blood out onto the dirt. Worse, there was a splinter of metal driven into its shoulder, awash in thick, yellow slime.
It took a great deal of self-control to pretend he didn't see that and to feign relaxing his stance.
“Evening, Layaka.” He said, keeping his voice even. “I suppose if you're watching the children, the others have already gone to Solgrum's little get together.”
The girl looked surprised, but covered it quickly. “Oh, yes, Mister Issacor. They asked me to watch the little ones for them.”
Even if he didn't hear it in her hesitation, Issacor knew that to be a lie. He knew how particular the nir-lumos were about their children and who was allowed contact with them. Even if Raiteria or Bromun were that stupid, Grandmother would have overruled them should they suddenly abandon sense and try to place their children in the trust of the famously flighty and scatterbrained Layaka.
Famously, he realized, because that's what she wanted them to think.
“Odd.” He kept his voice calm even as he planned his next moves. He had to separate her from the children before he could truly take her on. “Taylin said that Signateria volunteered to watch the children tonight. Frankly, I'm surprised you didn't find a way to stay by Brin's side, invitation or no.”
Layaka laughed lightly. “Sadly, I couldn't think of any. Now, if you excuse me...”
Whatever she was about to do, whatever Issacor was about to do, Gruwluff beat them to it. The wolves of the nir-lumos were said to be monstrously loyal, willing to brave agonizing, even fatal wounds in defense of their companions. The caravans, in turn, treated them like family, even burying them as such.
Gruwluff lived up to his breed's reputation and beyond, moving to protect his companion's family. Ignoring the brutal tears in his back and the yellow slime's toxic fire in his blood, he summoned enough strength to snarl and lunge for her legs. He was too injured and in too awkward a position to do any real damage, but she didn't know that.
Dancing back from him, Layaka let go of Motsey's hand and dropped her wrist, twisting it to move hidden mechanisms in the evening coat's sleeves. A splinter, much like the one in Gruwluff's shoulder, gleamed wetly along its six inches of length, droplets of yellow flying from it as she whipped it around to throw.
Issacor intercepted it by dropping Faith-Be-Forgiven directly into its path. The splinter made a ping sound and ricocheted off into the night.
“A poisoner.” Issacor snarled with disdain.
“A scout assassin.” Layaka corrected, moving laterally to get more open space behind her. The whole time, she kept the sleeping form of Rale between them. “I earned the Emerald Order from Nov I himself after the Battle for Locklom's Oasis.”
“Lies. Nov I's been dead longer than you've been alive!” Issacor activated the hidden device that split Faith-Be-Forgiven's sheathe. He wasn't fighting an exhibition here, so he offered up a prayer to the Mother and by Her will, the first un-tarnished disc along the weapon's length, the seal of Oor-kutre, hummed and rotated in its setting. After a quarter turn, it sank slightly into the surface of the blade. The world leapt into clarity; not because his senses were heightened, but because they were sped up, capable of analyzing everything he took in in fractions of a second.
He easily swept his blade to intercept two more flechettes and cut them out of the air. Now he recognized them for what they were: the swift and silent death of the battlefield. Spellcrafters and engineers were such a massive threat that it was outright expected for armies to employ assassins to hunt and destroy them ahead of armed action. Some armies hired specialized magehunters who were spellcrafters in their own right. Others simply relied on highly skilled murderers. Poisoned flechettes had earned a historical place during the Age of Tragedies as the weapon of choice for that kind of work.
Layaka's feet skidded to a stop on the hard packed dirt. “Longer than I've been alive? He's only been dead forty years.”
Less than forty, to be accurate. Nov had only lived two years past the signing of the Thirteen Nations Accord, victim of the very same sleepless nights, poor diet, constant travel and war wounds that made him the central figure in getting those accords signed.
A calculated, cruel grin split her face and she let two more flechettes drop down, holding them between her outstretched fingers. “You hold your stance well, but there's more tells in a soldier than the stance. You're surprised. And more than a little confused. Let's see what your ang'hailene 'friend' told you during those sessions of alternately sparring and flirting.
“I earned ninety-three confirmed kills on mages and engineers during the Victory Road campaigns. They would have stamped my face on half-marks if it wasn't for the fact that I stumbled on Nov II taking his dalliance with some silver-scaled dragonsired wench from the prison camps. My reward was a shitwater assignment in some crumbling fort in the desert. Took us two years to even learn the war was over.”
Issacor tried to push forward, but Layaka continued to back away, moving away from the camp entirely, throwing a flechette to warn him not to get too bold.
“And what happens to old soldiers when the war's done? We don't disappear. We sit and we rust and we rot and decades of skill and knowledge go to waste because all the young men want to save up their money and learn to be mages, or buy a rifle because it's easier. Then one day the wretched creatures beg for your 'wisdom' on when to plant because you're so old that you must know.
"It's enough to make you want to trade all their worthless lives for a second chance to be young and useful again. Because everyone only cares about what you are in the now. They never cared that I was once Trenion Partha, Mage's Mortality!”
She suddenly dropped into an aggressive stance, three flechettes at the ready between their fingers. “Well thanks to Lord Immurai, I've been reborn as Layaka the Plague!”
The attack didn't come from her. Issacor wasn't even aware of the danger before the sound of rending metal and the splitting agony of torn sections of his armor digging into the flesh of his back. Something large and feathery went past his head, extending the rents in his armor across his right pauldron as it went.
Amet. Layaka's falcon. Clearly it wasn't really a falcon any more than Layaka herself was an innocent girl if its talons could shred steel plate without it losing flight speed.
Issacor bellowed in pain and tried to bring the blade up to strike at the bird, but at that moment, Layaka threw more flechettes, forcing him to move to block them instead.
“I smell your blood.” said Layaka. “That must have hurt too. How long can the mighty blade disciple fight with his back laid open like that? How long can you keep blocking fast enough to avoid getting a dose of fleshknotter oil?”
Taking a stable stance that took strain off the side Amet all but flayed, Issacor brought his sword into guard position, pointing up and slightly toward her. “Anything you throw, I can cut out of the air.”
“Was hoping you'd say that.” she laughed. “Prove it!” Whatever had been done to give her a new body endowed it with greater strength than normal, but nothing strikingly above human capacity. So it was an effort for Layaka to reposition the drugged and sleeping Rale in one arm and then heave her at Issacor with all her might.
The blade disciple was struck dumb by the maneuver, alarms sounding in every part of his mind. This was a feint, but one he dared not ignore. He let go of Faith-Be-Forgiven with one hand and stepped forward with the other to catch Rale.
It was hardly an optimal motion and he had to go to a knee to soften the blow of being caught in his armored embrace, but he did it. Rale fussed in the sleep, even that much shock unable to overcome the drug in her system. Why was she drugged? Had the girl cried? Maybe fought? Halflings, he knew, were amazing fighters when they put their minds to it. And from growing up as a boy in a farming enclave beset by minor spirit beasts, he knew not to underestimate a child.
Something flashed by on his left, out of range of his sword thanks to his holding Rale. He knew it was Layaka and tried to turn to meet her. But it was too late; her speed was enhanced to the same extent as her strength and before he could face her, a new pain pricked his aggrieved back. There was cold where the slimy ichor dropped into his wounds.
Worse, he suddenly realized where she was headed; back toward the wagon. Toward Motsey.
***
Signateria woke to the sound of a single bone die rattling around in a cup and a deep laugh. When her eyes opened, however, she was alone, and then came the pain. Her entire arm was cramped painfully and throbbing. It radiated from her left upper arm. When she tilted her head, she could see the straight-edged throwing knife buried in the muscle there and dripping yellow slime into the wound.
Poison. If she recalled her training with Grandmother correctly, a particularly sadistic one designed to make the target die in agony as every muscle in their body cramped and the heart seized. The shock of the chemicals entering her system must have knocked her out, which was normally just a mercy, as victims that fell into that shock never woke up as the poison progressed.
Fighting the violent pains that gripped her arm, Signateria forced herself to sit up. She should not be awake. She should have passed out from the pain by now anyway. And yet there she sat. A shaking hand, the one not afflicted with fleshknotter oil, found her holy symbol still upon her chest. The One Dice Rolling. One of the names for Pandemos.
The gods, it was said, were no longer allowed to interfere directly in the fates of mortals, not since around the era known as Draconic Control. No one knew why, only that it was supposedly the express edict of Denaii. But the dice priests knew that their revered god laughed at all edicts, and when there was great need and great importance, or at least great interest, he would put his thumb on the scales of reality.
That meant there was something she could do, a part she had to play. And she sorely hoped it involved punishing Layaka and saving the children.
First, she needed to be rid of the poison that now had her left hand closed into a knotted fist.
Gathering up the fabric of her sleeve, she used it to grasp the flechette without touching its corrupting load of poison, and gingerly pulled it out of the wound. It dropped onto the floor of the wagon with a ping. Once that was done, she looked and found what she needed most; the water basin.
“Blessed be the One Dice.” She murmured. Luck was His domain and as luck had it, she'd been washing the children's hands and faces after dinner when the attack came. Even more lucky, the basin hadn't been knocked over in the struggle.
She stood, noting that her left leg was starting to cramp too. The fleshknotter used on the flechettes was evidently cheap and slow acting, chemical shock aside. However it had been applied in massive dollops, which meant that the effects came on stronger when they did come.
After a few limping steps to the basin, Signateria hissed in pain as she leaned on her bad arm. She needed her good arm for spellwork. Fighting back tears from the increasingly intense cramps in her arm, leg and now the ribs along her left side, she touched her finger to the water's surface at the exact center of the wide, shallow bowl.
The words tumbled out of her, a prayer poetic, but so breathlessly whispered and hurried that it might as well have been in another language. Grandmother always told her that speaking wasn't necessary. That the gods could see the heart of their devout. But others she'd met and seen believed that the words and the sound of the words carried power. Kaiel, as close to a loreman as she'd ever met, agreed. So she spoke, even when she couldn't be sure she was saying the right words.
All the while, her fingers flew over the water's surface, drawing symbols. It was a mildly complex spellwork, but it was one she knew by heart; transmuting water into a draught of purification. Every morning for the past decade, Signateria cast this spell over a smaller bowl of water first thing in the morning and drank the results. It kept a priest healthy by washing away impurities in the body. Drink enough of it and it could cure almost any mortal disease.
As it did every morning, something warm filled her as she neared the end of the spell. The Channeling. This was the difference between mages and priests. A mage used their personal energies, or parlayed them into drawing more from the environment. A priest received the power from their god to fuel their spellworking.
Beneath her finger, the very surface of the water turned to ice and just as suddenly shattered. The draught was done, and not a moment too soon. Her right hand was starting to cramp as well. If it progressed much further, the draught wouldn't be enough to halt it. With no time for propriety, she plunged her hand into the now freezing cold water and drank from her palm.
The cold worked its way down her throat, refusing to be warmed by her body heat, settled in her belly and transformed. She couldn't even describe the feeling that coursed through her properly. It wasn't cold, or warm, it wasn't painful or sensual. It was clear, the essence of clarity pulsing through her and leaving nothing behind.
And also just like every morning, it left her dizzy. Dark hair falling around her eyes, she leaned heavily on the table, catching her breath. The pains were gone, leaving only soreness in their place. Pulling up her sleeve, she found a rivulet of fleshknotter oil dribbling down her arm out of the wound. It had grown dark and cloudy; inert.
There were voices outside. Suddenly, she remembered the children. Layaka had done this. She had come to take them. It didn't matter why, because that was enough. By the laws of the nir-lumos, that was a transgression worthy of death.
Her eyes fell upon something she'd dropped on the floor when the flechette hit her; a talisman of plaster painted with blue and silver. When Raiteria explained to her its function, she also explained that those were the colors of the Arunsteadeles family. Breaking it would let Kaiel, and by extension, Rai and Bromun, know that there was something wrong at home.
Without a second thought, she grabbed up the talisman and smashed it against the wall.
Then she moved swiftly for the door.
***
There were at least three poisoned flechettes in his back; that much Issacor knew. He felt each point of chill as they wept their corruption into him and the first twitches as the muscles in his back betrayed him.
No time to worry about that, he told himself. All he could think of was how Layaka was truly a monster. And as such, he
shuddered to think what purpose she had for going after the children. Personal pain meant nothing compared to that. Protecting them was paramount, regardless of what happened to him.
A grinding noise reached his ears and he looked up to see one of the tarnished seals in Faith-Be-Forgiven beginning to rotate: Oor-oorze, the seal of Purpose. The tarnish fell off in flakes, like ash drifting away from burning paper. The seal was unlocked and in the next moment, it sank into the blade and became active.
Strength and vigor filled him, coming alongside the clarity and speed. The pain of his wounds and the poison faded from his consciousness; unimportant. He had set foot on the path of purpose and while he fought for it, he could not be slowed, could not succumb, could not die.
He turned, Rale still cradled in one arm. With the seal of Purpose active, carrying her was no more a hindrance than carrying a handkerchief. The massive Five Virtues Sword was gripped in one hand as if it were meant for it. He took one step and it seemed to move him across nine. Suddenly, he was right up beside Layaka.
With a lowered shoulder, he collided with her, knocking her off the course she was taking to get to Motsey. She fell, rolling in the dust before coming up with three flechettes in each hand. She sent all of them for him. None had the slightest chance of touching him. His sword didn't just smack them aside, it shattered them in air.
A shadow darkened the door of the wagon and out of the corner of his eye, Issacor saw Signateria standing there, her face hardened by rage.
Finally, the sadistic smile faded from Layaka's face. “I really must be getting old. People didn't just shrug off a poisoning like that in my day.” Her lips formed a thin, cruel line as she dropped the pair of flechettes she was holding and raised her arm.
Signateria started a prayer, the words sharp and angry. People did not touch nir-lumos children without permission and not expect harsh punishment.
Lighter Days, Darker Nights (Rune Breaker) Page 15