Weapon of Blood

by Chris A. Jackson

  “Mya!”

  Lad’s shout brought her eyes up to see a massive, scaly arm sweeping toward her.

  Mya had just enough time to turn and take the impact on her shoulder and back. Barbs like a wall of thorns ripped into her. The force of the blow snapped her head back, and she felt the muscles of her neck tear in a painless but nauseating sensation. Bones cracked, and she wondered why the scenery tumbled past in a spinning swirl. A brick wall flashed across her sight, and Mya’s vision went suddenly dark.

  Lad heard Mya hit the wall of the tenement building with a sickening crunch. He didn’t dare look to see how she was, for the Neera-creature had turned its full attention to him.

  It lunged, its mouth gaping and clawed hands grasping. It was fast for such a large creature, but not fast enough to seize him. Lad spun away and slashed at a wrist as thick as his thigh. The katana skittered along the armored hide, shearing the spines off a half-dozen scales, but didn’t penetrate into the flesh beneath. Ducking under a sweeping backhand, he leapt to slash at its face. The creature jerked back, and the blade scored a line in the fine scales of its cheek. Blood as black as midnight flowed from the gash, and the flat, reptilian head snapped around to glare at him. Lad landed in a crouch, stumbling at the pain from the crossbow bolt still protruding from his thigh.

  This isn’t working.

  He circled to buy time, favoring his injured leg, every moment weakening him further with trauma and blood loss. He had to end this fight quickly, but how, if he couldn’t hack through the scales? He searched his memory for a lesson and came up with nothing. He’d been trained to fight people, not a monster like this. Got to find a way to get through its armor.

  Armor… When fighting an armored opponent, seek the joints between plates with the point of a weapon or apply blunt force to vital areas. Remember!

  Lad considered his options. Blunt force wouldn’t work; he would only tear himself to pieces if he tried to kick or punch those thorny plates. He had Horice’s sword, but the creature didn’t have any joints in its armor. If he thrust at the right angle, the blade might slip between the scales, but it could become jammed between them, and he would lose the weapon. He edged to his left, and the creature’s gaze followed him, its yellow eyes narrowed.

  That’s it! Lad smiled grimly as he focused on his targets. The creature might be armored, but if he blinded it, he might be able to kill it.

  He dodged another grasping hand and slashed at the fingers. Again the blade chipped off a couple of the spurs from its knuckles, but did no real damage. Lad backed away, but his heel found one of the dead assassins. He turned his stumble into a short backward flip into the midst of the corpses and snatched up an abandoned weapon. Feinting to his left to draw the creature’s attention, he flipped the heavy, leaf-bladed dagger in his hand and threw.

  One of the yellow eyes went dark.

  The beast’s half-hiss, half-scream, shattered the rain-soaked night as it yanked the dagger out of its ruined eye. The toothy maw gaped, spewing acid in a broad arc, but Lad was already tumbling out of the way. A cloud of noxious fumes rose behind him as the corpses of the fallen assassins hissed and smoked. Lad looked around wildly, searching for something else to throw, and spied a crossbow bolt. He had just wrapped his fingers around the short wooden arrow when a deep rending noise snapped his attention back to his foe.

  The creature had ripped one of the stunted trees right out of the ground. Holding the root end, it brandished the tree like a huge leafy club and advanced. As it cocked the tree back for a swing, Lad took aim and hurled the bolt at its remaining eye. A last-instant twitch of the creature’s head sent the arrow ricocheting off into the dark. Lad prepared to dodge the sweeping blow of the tree, but realized that he had mistaken its attack. Instead of using the tree like a club, it flung it straight at him.

  Lad leapt, but the raking limbs caught him like a huge net. He hacked a swath through the foliage as he fell, but landed hard, pinned for a moment beneath the densely packed branches. He thrashed to free himself, but the limbs bent rather than breaking. A huge foot came down on the trunk of the tree, pressing hard to pin him to the soggy ground. Cold mud rose around Lad as he slashed at the encumbering limbs, to no avail. Droplets of acid hissed in the rain as the toothy maw snapped forward, as quick as a striking snake. Lad plunged the katana toward the soft tissues at the back of the throat, but the creature twisted its neck, and the blade punctured its cheek instead of its spine. Teeth grated on steel as the jaws closed.

  The enchanted blade snapped off near the guard.

  The creature flung its head, spitting blood and shattered steel as the sword’s hilt writhed in Lad’s hand, morphing through a hundred different forms as the magic died. He flung the useless thing away and struggled to free himself, agony lancing through his leg as the crossbow bolt in his thigh caught on a limb. A huge clawed hand reached down for him. He couldn’t evade it, couldn’t dodge, and couldn’t break free. He grasped the hand by finger and thumb to keep the claws at bay, but the creature’s strength could not be resisted. Finger-long claws plucked at his throat.

  A flash of movement caught his eye just before one of the thick stone benches crashed down on the Neera-creature’s skull. Blood and pulped gray matter gushed from its ruined eye socket.

  Lad rolled to evade the falling corpse, pain lancing thorough his leg as the crossbow bolt snapped off. A stifled cry escaped his lips as the heavy body crashed down onto the tangle of limbs and foliage. Pushing himself up slowly, he eased out of the pressing branches, every wound screaming for attention.

  A slim hand grasped his arm and lifted him up, steadying him on shaky legs. Mya looked like a tattered scarecrow, her shredded wrappings hanging in rags. The tattoos on her legs, shoulder and one arm shone dark in the glistening rain, unveiled for the world to see.

  “You okay?”

  “No.” He looked around the corpse-strewn courtyard, his eyes drawn to the narrow tunnel through which his wife and daughter had fled. “But I will be.”

  He brushed off her helping hand and stumbled toward the dark passage. “Wiggen!”

  His heart leapt in his chest as his wife emerged from her hiding place. Wiggen was soaked and shivering, but she was alive, and clutched Lissa to her breast. Lad could have sobbed with relief. It was over. The masters were dead, and his family was safe.

  Wiggen’s eyes took in his injuries, the blood, and her face paled.

  “Oh, gods! Lad!” She hurried forward, but then stumbled to a stop. Her eyes widened, and a startled expression crossed her face. “Lad? I don’t…” She took one more staggering step and fell to her knees.

  “Wiggen?” Lad lunged forward to catch her, his pain forgotten. He clutched her, then caught Lissa as her arms went slack. “Wiggen! What—”

  “I…can’t feel…” she gasped in panic. “Lad, I…” Her eyes lost focus, and one last sigh escaped her lips.

  “Wiggen!” Lad clutched her close with one arm. He was vaguely aware of Lissa wriggling in his grasp, crying as the rain pattered onto her little face. Wiggen’s heart fluttered against his chest like the wings of a caged sparrow. “No, Wiggen. Please. Don’t…”

  Wiggen’s tremulous heartbeats slowed…then ceased. Her head dropped back, her beautiful eyes staring sightless up into the weeping sky.

  “NO!”

  Lad didn’t know if he actually voiced his scream, but it echoed raucously in his mind, a cavern of confusion and pain. Wiggen couldn’t be dead. If anyone died, it should have been him. He was the weapon…the killer…the assassin. Not her. Wiggen was just an innkeeper’s daughter, a wife, a mother, a lover, a friend…

  The pain of his wounds vanished in a sea of anguish as a thousand memories rushed over him. Wiggen with her eyes closed, tenderly cupping a sparrow in her hands. Wiggen in the kitchen, humming as she prepared oatcakes. Wiggen lying beside him in bed, smiling sleepily in the candlelight, the sweat of their lovemaking beaded on her breasts.

  Nevermore…

&n
bsp; Eventually, Lissa’s cries penetrated the fog of loss that obscured Lad’s mind, and he slowly recalled himself. He looked to his child, but even his relief that she was safe and sound couldn’t allay his grief.

  I must care for her, he thought numbly. Wiggen would want that.

  Gently, Lad eased his wife to the sodden ground. As he pulled back his hand, however, his fingertip brushed something hard in her back, and he plucked it out. A chill that had nothing to do with the rain washed over him as he stared at the small dart that had been lodged deep in her flesh. The metal shaft was black, fletched with a tiny tuft of black feathers, its tip beveled and hollow.

  He stared at his dead wife, then at the dart in his hand. Like a smoldering bonfire rekindled, rage ignited in his heart. Someone, somehow, had murdered Wiggen. Lad lurched to his feet. He had thought his fight was over, but now he knew it was just beginning.

  “Lad! What—”

  Mya stared down uncomprehending at Wiggen, or rather, Wiggen’s corpse, Lad’s wretched cry ringing in her ears. What the hells happened?

  Lad evidently had not heard her. He just stood there, staring down at his dead wife, the squalling babe held limply in one arm.

  “Lad!” She touched his arm, and when he still didn’t respond, she grabbed him by the wrist. Despite the chill rain, it felt as if his skin was burning. “Lad! Come on! All this noise is bound to attract the City Guard. We’ve got to go!”

  Lad turned blank eyes toward her, his gaze as dead as his wife. “They murdered her.” He held out a small dart, bloody rainwater pooling in his palm around the tiny cylinder of black metal.

  Confusion clouded her thoughts. “They couldn’t have! She’s wearing the guildmaster’s ring!” There was no time to discuss this now. She tugged on his wrist. “Come on! We’ve got to go!”

  “The ring…” His eyes snapped to needle sharpness. “Here! Take Lissa.” He thrust the crying babe into her arms.

  “I don’t—”

  “Take her!” The sudden murder in his eyes brought her up short, and she took the child, holding her close to block the rain. The crying eased, and Lissa opened her eyes—eyes like his—and looked up into Mya’s face.

  Lad dropped to his knees beside Wiggen’s body, leaning over her. He took her hands in his, kissed them gently, then slipped the guildmaster’s ring off her finger. For a long moment he just knelt there, looking at the ring. Finally he spoke.

  “They murdered my wife, Mya. They must have hired someone outside the guild. I’m going to find them, and I’m going to kill them. But I need your help. I need the guild’s help.”

  “There is no guild, Lad. Look around!” She waved a hand at the litter of bodies in the morass of churned mud and blood. “It’s destroyed. We destroyed it.”

  “No,” he said firmly. “We killed some of them, but there are more. As long as there’s a guildmaster, there’s a guild.”

  Mya shook her head. What is he talking about? “There is no guildmaster, Lad. Hells, I’m the only master left! There’s just—” She choked on her words as Lad raised his hands. “No!”

  He slipped the guildmaster’s ring onto his finger.

  Mya froze as Lad stared at her, his luminous eyes glowing in the gloom. In that moment, she could count every raindrop that fell between them, as if they took an eternity to descend from heaven to earth. The sight of the gold and obsidian ring on his finger stabbed through her. All the fighting, all the killing, everything she’d done to prevent this, and here she was, a slave once again. She looked into his eyes, but she no longer saw the man she knew, the man she loved. Lad was gone; only the weapon remained. She could do nothing but obey.

  Lad lifted Lissa from Mya’s arms and nodded toward the tangle of corpses. “Take the other masters’ rings.”

  “Why?”

  “Take them! We’ll need to appoint new masters from the surviving journeymen.”

  “But—”

  Lad’s voice grated between clenched teeth, low and dangerous, as he leaned toward her. “I’m the new guildmaster, and your life is mine to spend! Now get the other rings, or I swear, I’ll kill you right here!”

  My life…his to spend, she thought, swallowing the bile that flooded her throat.

  Mya splashed through the mud and recovered the other four masters’ rings. The creature that had been Neera had melted in the rain, the scaly horror dissolving away to reveal the corpse of a shriveled old woman. When she returned to him, Lad handed his daughter back to her and gathered Wiggen into his arms.

  “Where to?”

  “I’m taking Wiggen home.” He turned away from her, starting toward one of the tunnels out of the courtyard. “And you’re coming with me.”

  “Yes…Master.” Mya fell in behind Lad, and they vanished into the gloom of Twailin’s rain-soaked night.

  Chapter XXV

  Looks like a band of ogres came through here.” Sergeant Tamir toed the hilt of a broken sword, then stumbled back when it slowly shifted from a rapier to a broadsword. “What the hells?”

  “Careful, Tam.” Norwood steadied Tamir as the sergeant’s heel struck the corpse of a man who had been neatly cut in half. “Try not to fall on the evidence.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Norwood concurred with the sergeant’s assessment of the scene. Corpses were strewn everywhere, some slashed, some twisted, some crushed, and some little more than smoldering puddles of liquefied flesh. Most bore weapons, which he would expect given the violence of the scene, but others confused him. One woman was dressed like a high-priced courtesan, but sported a deep wound between her eyes. Another, a wrinkled old woman with a crushed skull, wasn’t dressed at all. Norwood maneuvered around an uprooted tree, trying to put together a reasonable scenario that fit the evidence.

  Yawning, he wondered what time it was. Probably another three hours until daylight. It had been well after midnight when he received an urgent summons from the captain of the City Guard. A terse note explained that there had been a battle near Fiveway Fountain, and that Norwood and his Royal Guard should come immediately. He had nearly had the messenger arrested for waking him with an obvious prank—the thought of a battle taking place in Twailin seemed ludicrous—but now that he had seen it, the evidence that this had indeed been a battle was hard to refute.

  “How many, Captain?” he asked his City Guard counterpart.

  “Hard to say exactly, but our best count’s around thirty or so.” The captain indicated one of the puddles of remains slowly being incorporated into the courtyard mud by the rain. “Going to have to count bones to figure out if that was one or two.”

  “I know this one, Captain,” said a city guardsman, pointing at a corpse with a deep chest wound and the top of his skull sheared away. “His name’s Youtrin. He’s head of the Bargeman’s Guild.”

  “A guildmaster?” Norwood’s pulse quickened as he thought, Not only more violence, but now we’ve got city leaders being killed. The duke will have my head! He stepped over two more bodies and looked down at the face frozen by death in a snarl. The hands of the body still clutched the hilt of a shattered knife and a hand axe. “Looks like he was more than just a guildmaster if he was involved in this. He certainly doesn’t look like an innocent bystander.”

  “What’s a guildmaster doing at this time of night in this part of the city, sir?” Tamir’s question was rhetorical, but it started Norwood thinking.

  “Guild war,” he murmured, remembering his late-night visitor’s claim. Five years ago he would have laughed at the thought of an upright citizen being involved with the Assassins Guild, but the experience with Saliez had taught him differently. “I wonder who won.”

  Tamir, the only one close enough to have heard his captain’s musings, looked skeptical, but refrained from commenting.

  “Well, we’d best get started, Tamir, but be careful. Send for Master Woefler to examine the scene for evidence of magic.” He poked the broken blade that had distressed his sergeant with the toe of his boot. The hilt shifted fr
om a broad cross to an ornate basket guard right before their eyes. “Like that.”

  “Right, sir. Come on, people! Work in from the edges, one body at a time. Everything gets bagged and tagged. It may be muddy as a pigsty, but that’s no excuse for missing evidence!”

  As Tamir directed his men, Norwood stepped out of the way. The bodies would be taken to the City Guard headquarters for identification, if there was enough left to identify. Somehow, he didn’t think many family members would be coming forth to claim loved ones.

  “Knew things were coming to a head, but I didn’t think it’d end up like this.”

  Norwood turned to the City Guard captain. “End up? You think this is the end of it?”

  “Maybe not, but with so many dead, I don’t know how many more would be left to carry on. Somebody must have won here, and whoever lost, lost big.”

  “I hope you’re right, Captain.” Norwood looked around at the bodies again and wondered if his mysterious visitor lay among them. Since he had never seen the man’s face, there was no way to know. “We’ve obviously got some higher-ups involved here. Maybe without their leaders, the violence will ease off. But what the hell am I going to report to Duke Mir?”

  “I don’t envy you that job.” The City Guard captain nodded farewell and picked his way through the carnage, gathering his men and leaving the Royal Guard to their grisly job.

  “Captain!” Tamir called, waving him over. The sergeant had an incongruous grin on his face, one that sent a shiver of worry up Norwood’s spine.

  “What, Sergeant?”

  “You’re gonna love this, sir.” He knelt beside the corpse of a young man and pointed to a dark speck on his neck. “That look familiar?”

  “What the…” Norwood knelt, oblivious to the bloody mire soaking his trousers. The dark speck did look familiar. He grasped the tuft of feathers and drew a black dart from the dead man’s neck. “Well, I’ll be a…”

  “Yes, sir.” Tamir held out an evidence bottle. “Don’t need a wizard to tell me it’s the same as that other one.”