Every one of them moved aside as Cyrus descended, and upon reaching the first floor he found a half dozen members of Sanctuary lingering in the kitchen and living room. The more formal among them saluted him and he found a familiar face at the front entryway, talking to an elf in full armor.
“Andren,” Cyrus said in surprise. “I didn’t know you were here.”
“I was sleeping when you came over earlier,” the healer said with a nod. “Long watch the night before. This is Endrenshan Odellan—Endrenshan is roughly translated to Captain—of the Termina Guard.” He gestured to the armored elf, who bowed his head in acknowledgment. The elf, like most Cyrus encountered, was at least a foot shorter than he, with a unique helm that came to a point at the top, with winged ornamentation that extended beyond either side, giving his head a very different shape.
“Cyrus Davidon, of Sanctuary.” Cyrus reached out and grasped the extended hand of the guard captain. “Has my comrade apprised you of what happened here?”
“Just basics,” Andren replied, his long, dark hair curled below his neck. “About the Hand of Fear and how they’re after one of our guildmates.”
Cyrus turned his attention to Odellan. “They broke in through the cellar from the house next door, about thirty or so—”
Odellan cocked his head. “Has anyone checked on the people who lived next door, to see if they’re alive?”
Cyrus shook his head. “They weren’t there. Endeavor had paid the occupants of the house to stay elsewhere—”
The Captain’s eyes grew wide. “Endeavor was involved in this skirmish as well?”
“Aye,” Andren said with a sidelong smile at Cyrus. “The people who own this house, one of their daughters is with Sanctuary, the other with Endeavor.”
“The members of Endeavor that were in the house next door are dead,” Cyrus said to Odellan. “They also took over the house on the other side and the one in back, while we have the one across the street.” He pointed out the door. “Do you need the local constabulary here to take a statement of some kind from me?”
Odellan’s youthful face was lit with a gleam of mirth. “The Termina Guard is the local constabulary.” The Endrenshan’s short blond hair peeked out from under the lip of his helm, which outlined his face on the sides and forehead. He was possessed of a clean-shaven, ruggedly handsome kind of confidence, the type Cyrus had always associated with the elves.
“I thought you were the army?”
“Army and constabulary are the same in the Kingdom,” Odellan said. “We police the cities and defend the Kingdom where necessary.”
“One would think you’d never been here before,” Andren said.
“I haven’t—not to Termina, anyway,” Cyrus said.
“I’m familiar with this Hand of Fear group, in passing at least,” Odellan said. “We’ve got a few dead in the last weeks, all attributed to them.”
Cyrus’s curiosity was awakened. “How did you know it was them?”
“I take it you haven’t lost anyone to them yet?” Odellan’s eyebrow was raised.
“We have.” Cyrus felt a burning in his chest as he thought of Niamh, lively, giggling—and no more. “One of our guildmates, back at Sanctuary.”
“My condolences.” Odellan’s flat face reddened. “But you must have caught them before they had a chance to leave their mark. You said they killed the defenders you had set up in the house over there?” He pointed.
“Somehow they blasted through the cellars. I haven’t seen it yet—”
“Walk with me,” the guard captain said, already in motion. He led them onto the street, where four columns of elven soldiers stood in formation while a few others milled about outside the houses surrounding them.
The metalwork in Odellan’s armor revealed patterns on the chestplate rather than the flat metal appearance that Cyrus was used to. Odellan led them to the front door of the house where the members of Endeavor that had been killed were staying.
Odellan pushed open the door. Inside was a house laid out not much differently than Vara’s. The sitting room was filled with dead bodies. A few live members of Endeavor looked up as Cyrus entered with Odellan and Andren, but said nothing.
“The walls.” Odellan pointed. Cyrus looked past the corpse of a warrior, a trickle of blood running down the mouth of the burly dwarf, to see spots on the white walls. “For every victim, they do this,” Odellan said.
Cyrus looked at the spots. They appeared a deep brown by the light of the lamps. He knelt and realized they weren’t spots, but blood, placed on the wall in a hand print. Empty space stood out between the joints and in the center of the palm, stark patches of white interrupted by the dried blood. “A hand print to mark the Hand of Fear,” Cyrus said. “Cute.”
“Not really.” Odellan stared at the carnage. “We’ve seen a few murders with the hand prints on the wall. Pharesia gave us a warning that this was the Hand of Fear. I guess they caught one in the act, before he made his getaway.” Odellan’s hand fell to his sword, where it rested as he looked at the bodies surrounding them. “A counselor of the King was killed along with his whole household guard.”
Cyrus stood up. “What about in Termina? Who has the Hand of Fear been killing?”
“Mostly wealthy individuals. Usually a lot more well off than your guildmate; the kind that live in the mansions on Ilanar Hill. Half a dozen or so—been quite the rumor mill starting about why they’d be targeting them.”
“Seems like the people who own a house like that could spring for a personal guard,” Andren said.
“They did,” Odellan said. “Some of the best, in fact. We’re not just talking about rank and file warriors. These assassins cut through druids, healers, paladins—even one particularly unfortunate dark knight.”
Andren perked up. “I don’t like the sound of that. Why was the dark knight ‘particularly unfortunate’?
Odellan shrugged. “He must have given them a hard time; there wasn’t much left of him by the time we found them. They either made an example of him or worked out some frustration on his corpse.”
Cyrus squinted, counting the number of hand prints on the walls. “And you’re sure it’s them?”
“I’m not sure of anything,” Odellan said. “Termina doesn’t get much in the way of murders; nor does the Kingdom as a whole. Our worship of the Goddess of Life gives our culture more of a respect for it; the idea of taking a life is beyond simple scorn or punishment, it’s anathema to our existence. The crime we deal with is larceny, fraud, smuggling, some bar fights and assaults.”
Cyrus thought of the alleyways of Reikonos, of the bad ones where no one went unless they were ready for a fight to the death over whatever was in their purse. “Sounds idyllic compared to the Confederation.”
“But fairly dull compared to what your guild does on a weekly basis,” Odellan said with a hint of enthusiasm animating his face. Cyrus watched the guard captain, who looked to be in his twenties by human standards. “So are you the Cyrus Davidon who led the invasion that dethroned the Imperials of Enterra?”
Cyrus exchanged a look with Andren, watching the elder elf roll his eyes. “I am.”
“I heard a rumor,” Odellan said, “that it was you and your guild who fought the Dragonlord in the Mountains of Nartanis.”
“We did,” Cyrus confirmed.
“You’ll have to tell me about it sometime,” the guard captain said, his detached calmness gone. “I have to ascertain that the person who owns this home is still alive and look around to make sure no one’s in distress.”
“Sure.” Cyrus pointed to the staircase. “Why don’t we take a look at the hole they made in the cellar and we’ll go up through to the house.”
They descended to find a cellar much like the one in Vara’s home. Dark, dank walls of stone surrounded an open space that had been used for storage. A few casks and crates were set against the walls and a half dozen bodies lay on the floor, bloody hand prints barely visible on the stone. A tremendous ho
le was blasted through one of the walls and a few members of Sanctuary and Endeavor were visible on the other side.
“What makes a hole like this?” Cyrus ran his finger along the rough edge. The wall was thick; the blocks used had been quarried to have smooth edges, but the hole was a jagged line all the way around the circle.
“Dragon’s breath,” Odellan said. Cyrus shot him a quizzical look and the guard captain chuckled. “Not that kind. It’s an alchemist’s creation, a powder, granules that you place inside a container with a string and you light it on fire and run. It explodes, leaving you with a mess like this.”
Cyrus thought back to the fight in Vara’s parents’ room, of one of the assassins throwing something into the room that exploded. “They used something in the fight; it was small, and it exploded, but it made a big cloud of smoke. Nothing like the damage they did here.”
“Sounds like they’ve got a few different tricks.” Odellan stepped through the hole in the wall and looked around from the other side. “So you all heard it upstairs?”
“I didn’t,” Cyrus said. “I did feel the building shake, but not enough to alarm me.”
“So your companions warned you that trouble was coming.” Odellan was speaking almost to himself. “Can we go meet them?”
Cyrus gestured to the staircase and Odellan fell into line behind him. They reached the third floor and once again the members of Endeavor that were guarding the door parted so that the three of them could pass.
When Cyrus entered the room, Vara was still sitting on the bed, but she looked much more composed. Her hands were now in her lap, eyes alert. Catching sight of him as he walked in, she let out a small sigh.
“This is Endrenshan Odellan,” Cyrus said by way of introduction. Odellan’s eyes fell on Vaste, who leaned next to the chair that Isabelle was sitting in, and the captain’s eyes widened in slight surprise.
“Pleased to make your acquiantance.” J’anda had cast an elven illusion, stepping forward to grasp the hand of the captain.
Odellan’s gaze was still fixed on Vaste. “I...can’t say I’ve ever met a troll that wore the mark of a healer before.”
“These old things?” Vaste looked down at his robes as if seeing them for the first time. “I took them off a chap I met in a dark alley...after I drained his blood, mutilated his body and danced naked around it for a bit.”
“And he jokes,” the Endrenshan said. He turned to Cyrus, almost plaintive. “Please tell me he’s joking.”
“Vaste is a healer, and yes, he has a somewhat warped sense of humor.”
From behind Cyrus came a soft cough, just loud enough to be distracting. Turning, he saw Chirenya regarding him with great irritation. “Endrenshan Odellan, this is Chirenya. She’s the owner of this home.”
The elven woman crossed the distance between them, extending her hand to the guard captain. “Very pleased to make your acquaintance, Endrenshan. I believe I know your commanding officer, Oliaryn Iraid.”
“That’s like ‘General’ to humans,” Andren whispered to Cyrus. “Probably in charge of the whole city.”
Chirenya looked daggers at the healer. “The whole province, in point of fact.” She turned her attention back to the captain. “I wish we could have met under more pleasant circumstances, such as the Officer’s Ball.”
“I am newly arrived from Pharesia, madam,” Odellan said with a courteous nod.
“Really?” Chirenya’s tone was of pleasant surprise, though Cyrus would have wagered every piece of gold he’d saved in the last few years that she already knew. “You must meet my daughters. This is Isabelle.” She gestured toward the chair, where the healer raised a hand in a halfhearted wave. “She was injured in the attack, poor dear.”
“So sorry to hear that, madam,” Odellan said with a bow to Isabelle, who managed a weak smile in return.
“I wasn’t injured at all, fortunately,” Vaste said with a straight face. “In case you were worried.”
“And my other daughter,” Chirenya said, drawing Odellan’s discomfited expression back to her, “Vara.”
Vara stood from her place on the bed to greet the Endrenshan, drawing a double take from the guard captain. “Pleased to meet you,” she said in a low, tired voice. Cyrus saw a slight laceration at her hairline, crimson streaking her normally yellow locks.
“Vara?” The captain’s voice tremored with question. “Are you...?”
“Yes,” Chirenya answered with a smile. “She is.”
Odellan leaned in closer to Chirenya and lowered his voice. “Do you think that...she...might be targeted by this...Hand of Fear...?”
“Because she’s the shelas’akur?” Cyrus said, louder than was necessary, startling both Chirenya and Odellan and causing both to look at him as though he had thrown something at them.
Odellan cleared his throat, a loud, uncomfortable noise, as the captain stooped to examine one of the bodies. Chirenya glared at Cyrus with an expression he recognized from Vara’s face. The paladin, for her part, seemed to be regarding the whole situation with much more indifference than was normal for her.
Endrenshan Odellan pulled the cowl of the dead assassin’s uniform back to look at the ears, running his finger up to the point. “Are all of these assassins elven?”
“All that we’ve seen thus far,” J’anda answered. “I did a cursory look at the bodies downstairs and there don’t seem to be any non-elves.”
“I wish I could question one of them,” Odellan said, his fingers on his chin in contemplation.
Behind the Endrenshan, Cyrus watched Vaste begin to speak under his breath, lips moving as the faint glow of magical energy gathered on his hands. It built to a crescendo, a stunning burst of light that cast the room in brightness. The troll blinked as he finished and nodded when Odellan turned to him in surprise. “Wish granted,” he said.
Odellan’s brow furrowed, uncertain. “What? AHHHH!” With a start, the guard captain jumped back as the body he had been inspecting jerked to life and grabbed his leg.
“There you go,” Vaste said with a grunt of amusement. “Question away.”
“Heal me...please...” The assassin’s voice was a whisper, blood spurting from his lips.
“Looks like a lung wound,” Vaste said, craning his neck to see from where he was sitting on the floor. “Painful.”
Odellan looked in shock at the troll. “Aren’t you...going to heal him?”
“After all the trouble we went to putting the holes in him, I don’t think I’ll patch them up. Besides,” Vaste said, “if you interrogate him now, he’ll be more apt to answer your questions.”
“He’s bleeding all over my floor,” Chirenya said.
“Please,” came the strangled voice of the assassin. “It hurts...”
“You stormed into this house intending to do violence to its occupants,” Vaste said from the corner. “Did you not take into account the possibility that they might return the favor?”
Odellan cast a withering glare at Vaste, then knelt next to the assassin. “Who are you?”
The assassin’s lips curled into a pained smile, blood dribbling down his chin. “I have no name. I am a Hand of Fear.”
“So, more of a title then.” Vaste nodded. “And a dumb one at that.”
Cyrus held up his hand to Vaste. “Who is your leader?”
The dull eyes of the assassin met his, and from their exchange Cyrus looked away first; the assassin’s brown eyes were soulless. “Our leader?” He coughed, bringing up more blood. “His word is death.” Cyrus looked back to find the assassin fixated on Vara, who was meeting his gaze unflinching. “Yours. Your family’s. And everyone who aids you.”
“You’re not in a good position to be making threats,” Odellan said.
“Kill me; kill all of these.” The assassin tried to wave around the room to his fallen brethren, but his hand flopped. “More will come. We will pursue you to the ends of Arkaria.” The eyes glowed, still locked on Vara’s. “Until the ends of time. We wil
l watch and learn, and our next attack will be more powerful still.” He coughed again and a geyser of blood flooded from his lips. “If necessary, we will kill everyone you love, one by one, to get to you. Just like we did with—”
The bloody smile on the assassin’s face was frozen as a ‘WHUMP!’ broke the silence in the room. Odellan jumped back, a two-handed sword sticking out of the taunting elf’s chest. Vara had drawn her blade and struck so quickly that no one had seen, let alone been able to stop her. She raised it again, and with a cry of rage brought it down and split the assassin’s head from his shoulders.
A cool indifference played across her face, broken by a twitch of emotion, then another. Her perfect mask cracked, and one hand flew to her face, trying to cover it as she stood by herself amidst all of them. Cyrus watched and behind her hands he caught glimpses of her facade breaking.
“Out!” Chirenya’s words were frantic, hurried, as she went to her daughter’s side, wrapping an arm around her shoulder. “Everyone out!” She looked to Odellan. “My apologies, Endrenshan, but of course we’ll continue this some other time.”
He nodded. “Yes, madam. I’ll come calling tomorrow.” Bowing, he backed from the room as the members of Endeavor cleared the path for him, followed by J’anda, Thad and Andren.
Vaste followed after reassurances from Isabelle that she was fine. Still clutching her side, the healer moved to her sister’s other shoulder. Vara was deteriorating now, both hands before her face, a choked sob leaving her lips. He was alone in the room with the three of them and Vara’s father, still unmoving on the bed.
“You too.” Chirenya made a shooing gesture, crossing the distance between them and pushing him toward the door.
“It’s not safe,” Cyrus said, his protest weaker than he would have thought possible under the circumstances.
“I know you’ll stand watch outside the door,” she replied as she began to close it in his face. “Isabelle and I will handle this, as we always have. No one comes through that door. I know you’ll watch it all night.”
The Sanctuary Series: Volume 03 - Champion Page 12