Thief's Desire

by Isabo Kelly

  “But it’s the only chance we have,” Kevin said.

  Jacob nodded. “Kevin, you stay with Tiya and twenty of the soldiers in the woods. Henry, you’ll come with me and the rest of the guard. We’ll wait until all of the GeMorin are inside the ruins. Assume they’ll post a guard at the entrance. They may send some to check the perimeter. As soon as most are inside, Kevin, you signal and follow them in. We’ll sweep the perimeter and meet you inside.”

  “Jacob?” Vic caught his attention. She nodded over her shoulder at the tower. “I’d be willing to bet the view from the top of that thing is pretty good.”

  His eyes narrowed. She saw his initial protest, but he paused. He looked up at the tower, then back at her. “I don’t suppose I could talk you into staying there once the fighting starts?”

  She smiled and shook her head.

  “I didn’t think so.”

  “One whistle when they’re all inside. Followed by three if there’s a problem.”

  She met his gaze, letting him see her confidence.

  “How much time do we have?” Henry asked.

  “They’re no more than an hour away,” Tiya answered.

  “Then we’d better hurry.”

  “Halt,” Bserea called back. Her gaze swept the trees before them. They were less than a mile from the ruins.

  “What are you doing?” Pseer demanded, moving his horse beside her. “We don’t have time for this.”

  “Something’s wrong.” She didn’t bother to look at him. Her horse shifted beneath her. She stilled it with a sharp pull on the reins.

  “What’s going on?” Ptaun asked, concern edging his voice.

  “You two are jumping at shadows,” Pseer puffed. “I feel nothing.”

  Bserea checked the insult that leapt to her tongue and said instead, “It’s obvious they’ve shielded from mage sight again, you fool. You’re not supposed to feel them. But they’re here. Near.”

  “You’re imagining things, woman,” Pseer snarled. “If we aren’t there when he arrives…”

  “We will be,” Bserea hissed. The infant she was still forced to carry started to whimper. She held the blanket-swathed child in one arm, controlling her mount with the other. Absently, she bounced the child, but her eyes and senses still focused on the woods. “Would you run into a trap first, Pseer?”

  “I’d prefer a battle to this running and hiding,” the young magician mumbled.

  When GeRon stepped forward, all three magicians fell silent. “You have felt them,” he asked Bserea, glancing up. The GeMorin didn’t ride horses. They didn’t need to.

  “No, my lord. It’s only a suspicion.” The infant chose that time to whimper again, a sound just short of a cry, forcing Bserea to turn her attention to it.

  “My lord,” Pseer said, “she imagines things again. Would not your scouts have discovered them if they were near?”

  GeRon stared at the copper-skinned sorcerer until the man was forced to drop his gaze. Bserea hid a smile behind the cooing sounds she directed toward the child.

  “My scouts have not yet returned.”

  Bserea’s head shot up at GeRon’s statement. She dropped her gaze an instant later when the goblin clan leader turned his unblinking stare back on her.

  “Perhaps she does not imagine,” GeRon said. “But the master bids us arrive by noon. We must be there.”

  “What do you suggest, my lord?” Ptaun asked, stepping into the conversation.

  “We continue. Bserea and the child will stay behind until the battle is begun.” He faced her again. “Then you will gate in and take the child to the meeting place.”

  “You anticipate battle then, my lord?” Pseer made no effort to hide his excitement.

  “There will be a battle. It was inevitable.” He looked back at the young sorcerer. “And of no consequence. All that matters is that she,” he nodded to the baby, “be brought to the master safely.”

  Pseer smiled, battle fury already glimmering in his ice blue eyes. Ptaun maintain his stoic expression, keeping his thoughts concealed. Bserea shifted the fussy child and scanned the woods again. The sun was nearing its apex. It was time.

  From her vantage atop the tower, Vic could see all of the ruins, the King’s Guard hiding behind the rear wall, and the forest where it opened onto the ruins. She hid behind a merlon and scanned for the first signs of movement.

  Somehow she managed to miss the signs before the forward guard of GeMorin warriors stepped from the forest. They marched straight into the center of the front courtyard. In the midst of close to a hundred goblin warriors, rode two of the blood magicians.

  Her breath caught at the sight of the white-faced magician. He looked very much the same as the night she’d first seen him. Long black robe, split in the front and back for riding, heavy cloak pulled over his colorless face. The same terrifying knowledge behind his blue eyes. She absently fingered the onyx at her throat and concentrated on breathing slowly.

  Beside the white sorcerer rode a young man with the white hair and blazing blue eyes of their kind, but with the build of a warrior. His copper skin was stretched tight across the sharply chiseled bones of his face. Tight black breeches and tunic displayed his muscular build to good effect. He was handsome in a frightening way but the sight of him left her cold. And wary. His eyes glimmered with an inner fire she’d seen before. Battle fury.

  She watched as most of the group entered the ruins. Five goblins remained outside the archway, five more were sent to check the outer perimeter. The rest clustered into the front courtyard. The sorceress was missing. And so was Arlana.

  Vic warbled out a single note.

  And followed with three sharp whistles.

  King’s soldiers erupted from the forest, pouring into the archway, overwhelming the five guards. Tiya and Kevin led the charge. From the rear, Vic heard the clash of swords as the remaining soldiers dispatched the goblins checking the outer wall. She looked down in time to see the guard racing around the sides of the monastery. Their horses leapt the lower remains of the wall, taking them into the center of the battle. Henry was the first over the wall. Jacob was a single step behind him.

  Vic started to move from her perch to join in the fight when the movements of the four magicians caught her attention. She watched as all four abandoned their horses. The two blood mages stood in the center of the courtyard. Henry and Tiya approached from opposite sides. GeMorin and king’s soldiers parted before them, opening the center of the yard to the strange quartet.

  All four wore the black of their profession. All had the snow-white hair, the ice blue eyes, and the casual determination in their stance. And all four carried a frightening amount of power. Silence fell across the ruins. Everyone froze and watched as a charge built in the air.

  The copper-skinned sorcerer smiled at Tiya, boldly looking over her curves. “I will take the pretty woman,” he said in Karasnian to the white sorcerer, loud enough for all to hear.

  Tiya’s expression didn’t change as she faced him. But Kevin’s anger wasn’t as well controlled. He charged the young sorcerer, screaming a war cry, sword raised high above his head.

  The sorcerer didn’t even look in Kevin’s direction. A flick of his wrist stilled the young giant’s movements. “Does he belong to you?” he asked Tiya.

  Without breaking eye contact with the warrior mage, Tiya raised her arm, palm facing the ground. As her palm snapped shut, the spell holding Kevin in place collapsed. “That is your best?” she said without emotions.

  “So,” he said, still leering, “the pretty woman has power.” He snapped his hand, sending a ball of white energy toward her.

  She raised one hand and effortlessly caught it. When her hand opened, the ball had disappeared, her hand remained unmarked. “The pretty woman,” she said, “is the baby’s mother.” Tilting her head to one side, she threw out her other hand and released a bolt of blue energy that sizzled along the sorcerer’s shield, knocking him back a step.

  The young blood
magician’s eyes narrowed, and the fight was engaged.

  Henry and the white-faced sorcerer had locked gazes during Tiya and the other sorcerer’s show. Now they too began to slowly test each other’s strengths and weaknesses, gauging the other’s endurance. Jolts of power, fire, wind and ice flew back and forth, a swirl of elements gone crazy.

  The ground shuddered beneath them, but the enchantment that had held the rest of the soldiers in place broke. Soon the sounds of clashing metal filled the old monastery. Vic, released from her own trance, scaled down the tower walls.

  The fight had spread across the entire area by the time her feet hit the ground. Goblins and humans competed in a chaotic melee of individual battles. Vic scanned the area for Jacob and was confronted with a GeMorin warrior instead. She smiled at the green-faced goblin and dove away from his attack.

  Two knives jumped into her hands, both made of the meteor metal. She circled the GeMorin, watching for an opening. He leapt, swinging his saber high and wide toward her head. She ducked his swing and moved in close. She slashed at him with her left hand, forcing him to sway away from her knife. Before he could recover his balance, Vic swept her right arm around, but instead of striking with her knife, she slammed the metal bracer on her forearm into the goblin’s face.

  He screamed, dropping his saber to the ground, and clenched at his mouth. Vic had seen the fangs break. Before her eyes, the goblin fell to the ground, writhing in pain, his body beginning to turn purple. She didn’t wait to see the outcome.

  The ground continued to roll, stealing some of her balance, but she charged across the compound, toward the next GeMorin warrior. She fought with a single-minded determination that cleared away all other thoughts.

  When she bumped into Kevin, she almost didn’t recognize him.

  “Vic, Arlana?” Kevin said, not wasting time with words as, back to back, they fought two more GeMorin.

  “She must be with the sorceress,” Vic responded, flinging a hidden dart into the chest of her assailant. “Break their teeth,” she shouted, as she ducked under a goblin saber. “Has the same reaction on them as their bite has on us.”

  The battle currents pulled them apart before Kevin could answer. Around her, the ring of metal on metal now mixed with the sounds of shouts and screams, the low rumbling of the ground, and the hissing clap of explosions.

  Vic was pulling one of her knives from a dead goblin when a violent quake knocked her to the ground. She looked up in time to see Henry fall under the white magician’s onslaught.

  She raced to his side. The young sorcerer lay on the ground, his chest a blackened mess. His breathing was shallow and harsh. She knelt beside him, futilely looking for some way to help him when she heard the gravelly chuckle of the white-faced sorcerer.

  Her head snapped around to face the same smile she’d first seen from a roof in Dareelia.

  “I know you, girl,” he said quietly. “You were the spy atop the building.” His eyes widened slightly, and he glanced at the onyx at her throat. “Ah, it was you in the building that night during the ceremony. Wasn’t it?”

  She didn’t bother to answer. The flash of silver was the only indication that she had thrown her boot knife. The knife stopped in midair and clattered harmlessly to the ground. Her heart lodged in her throat as she met the sorcerer’s amused gaze.

  “You do realize, don’t you?” he whispered. “Anyone who sees the ceremony must die.”

  She threw up her arm to cover her face as his fingertips began to glow red. When nothing happened, she lowered her arm. And saw the bloody stump that had once been the sorcerer’s hand.

  Jacob was already bringing his sword around for a killing blow when his movements froze. She watched in a moment of horror as her boot knife slowly rose from the ground and pointed toward Jacob’s throat. The sorcerer spared her a single glowering gaze before letting the knife fly.

  She was on her feet and moving in that same instant, ignoring everything else around her, blocking out the sight of Jacob as he fell. Her full attention was focused on the exposed neck of the sorcerer. Inches from him, she felt a sudden shift in the air, but she didn’t stop to consider it. She lurched forward and plunged her breast dagger into the soft side of his throat.

  Blood sprayed her hand and face, painting her feral snarl.

  The sorcerer turned slowly, his eyes wide, astonished. A bloody gurgle bubbled from his lips before his ice blue eyes clouded, and he collapsed to the ground. “You must have witnessed the ceremony,” Vic growled. Then quietly, “Jacob!”

  He lay against the ruins of a wall, one hand clamped tightly against his right side, his eyes closed. “Jacob,” she said, crouching down beside him. “Jacob Marin, don’t you dare leave me now.”

  “I’m not that easy to get rid of,” he whispered.

  His eyes opened. A half smile touched his lips, and she took a stuttering breath.

  “Worried, little thief?”

  “No,” she said before kissing him gently. “What happened?” The relief that came from knowing his throat hadn’t been slit vanished when she saw the blood covering his side and hand.

  “I’m not sure, but I’d guess Henry managed to knock the blade off course.” His face pinched and he hissed in a sharp breath.

  “Jacob?” Panic raised her voice.

  “Still here, love.” He glanced at the fallen blood magician. “Don’t forget to get that blade back.”

  The sudden cry of a baby snapped their attention to the standing tower near the rear wall. The green door hung open. A shock of white against black disappeared through the archway leading to the interior of the circular tower. A second pitiful wail echoed back through the ancient stones.

  She looked back into Jacob’s eyes. He nodded in understanding. “I love you, Jacob,” she whispered against his mouth before kissing him one last time.

  When she started to rise, he clamped down on her arm. “Victoria…” He swallowed hard. “Stay standing, Victoria Flash.”

  “Aye, General.” She nodded shortly. Pausing at the fallen sorcerer long enough to retrieve her breast dagger, she sprinted to the building where Arlana and the sorceress had disappeared.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  At the top of the tower stairs, a single massive oak door hung partially open onto the only room in the building. Vic edged to the door and peeked inside.

  The room looked larger than she would have guessed from the outside. Pillars as thick as redwood trunks supported the planking of the roof, a roof she’d so recently walked. The floor, also of wood planking, was oddly free of dust. Three large windows, big enough to stand in, fed light into the room. One faced north, one east, the other west into the compound below.

  Across from the door, between the north and east windows, was what looked to be a second plain wooden door. She frowned. A door opening into the air? Just in front of the door, with her back to Vic, the blood sorceress stood immobile, her head bowed, the bottom of her black robe swirling in the breeze. Two red candles burned on the ground at each side of the strange door. Their flames never wavered in the air that moved the sorceress’s robe.

  In the center of the room, lying inside a stone cradle carved to look like a basket, Arlana cried.

  Vic studied the sorceress for several minutes, keeping her breath even with the movements of the breeze, her muscles loose and ready for action. The magician didn’t move or take any notice of the baby’s cries.

  Silently creeping into the room, she kept her gaze on the sorceress as she tested each step, ready to duck behind a pillar at the slightest movement. The low chanting of the magician filled the open room and the air blew warmly when it should have been cold. Each careful inch brought her farther into the heat and chanting until her toe touched stone.

  She dropped her gaze. The baby’s face was red from crying, her little fingers kneaded the air above her. When she looked into her clear blue eyes, Arlana stopped crying. And smiled. Vic looked back at the sorceress. She didn’t seem to notice the bab
y’s sudden silence.

  Smiling back at Arlana, she put her fingers to her lips in a gesture for quiet and knelt. Okay, little one, she thought, we’re gonna get you back to your mom now. But I need you to stay very quiet. To her surprise, the child didn’t so much as gurgle. In fact, when she looked again at the baby, she fancied seeing understanding.

  Pushing aside the idea as silly, she lifted Arlana from the cradle and shifted her gaze back to the sorceress. Every fiber of her being scanned for the tiniest movement as she edged toward the door. She was still several yards from escape, at a point near the west-facing window, when the sorceress raised her head and began to turn.

  Damn! She ducked behind a pillar. The open door was in front of her. If she sprinted, maybe…

  The door slammed shut, cutting off her only escape route.

  “All right, whoever you are,” the sorceress’s voice coiled through the room, a seductive whisper. “You may as well reveal yourself. You won’t be leaving through that door and the only other way out is a rather long drop.”

  Vic heard the shifting of material along the floor as she scanned her surroundings for another escape route.

  “Place the baby in the cradle and perhaps I’ll let you live,” the sorceress purred. “Perhaps I’ll even reward you.”

  A slight smile tugged Vic’s mouth as she looked into Arlana’s eyes. She can’t feel me, she explained silently to the baby for no real reason other than that she found the idea amusing. I’d bet a winter’s worth of kern that she thinks I’m a man.

  “You think you’re hidden from me?”

  An edge crept into the sorceress’s voice. Doesn’t like to be ignored, does she, Arlana? Her moving gaze fell on the western window. And she remembered the remains of the external stairway.

  “Your charm can’t shield the child. I know where you are. You can’t escape. Cooperate. I’m sure we can come to some sort of arrangement.”