Sylvia started to say something, but paused. She cocked her head to one side. “They are starting.”
Rawk got back up for another look. Everyone was standing in a circle, arms crossed over the chests, heads bowed.
“There are seven people in there.” Sylvia said. It sounded like she was going to say more, but when Rawk looked back at her, her face was pale.
“What is it?”
“There is one who has no magic at all, and another who has more power than I have ever seen.”
“So there are only six sorcerers? It’s getting better all the time.”
“Pardon?”
“What does the powerful one look like? I’ll attack him first.”
“Rawk, you cannot. He will kill you with a thought.”
“Or rip my heart out without leaving a mark?”
“Yes.”
Rawk swallowed and licked his lips. He was pretty sure Sylvia couldn’t see him. “So we just let a man who can do that run around free?” He was starting to get the feeling that the elf wasn’t going to be able to talk him out of anything at all. She was supposed to be smart; surely she could come up with something.
“Rawk...”
“Yes?”
“I need to tell you—”
The box collapse under Rawk and he fell on the ground in a heap. It was embarrassing. It was loud. He jumped back to his feet, cursing his knee, and looked around. There were voices coming from inside, talking, asking what was going on.
“Do we run?” He asked Sylvia. He hoped she said yes. It seemed that he would either die in a few seconds or the sorcerers would scatter and he would never be able to find them again. Neither option was something Rawk could live with. Especially the first one.
For a moment Sylvia said nothing. “Balen has recognized me.”
“What?” But the details didn’t matter. Drawing Kaj, Rawk raced to the door and shouldered it aside. He ran into the building and found himself surrounded.
Rawk lashed out at the nearest figure and was rewarded with a scream of pain. He pulled Kaj free of the tangle of robes and flesh, and spun away painfully into a barely noticed gap. He slashed low as he went, missed, and kept going into the corner.
Someone was on him with a sword. That wasn’t supposed to happen. He pushed the blade aside as his knee locked completely for a second. He got a cut across his arm and swore as he grappled with the stranger. Shoving, pushing. Searching for an advantage. The smell of garlic on the other man’s breath. That certainly didn’t help. Rawk ducked away to try and get a moment to think.
A voice hissed out of the darkness, colored by magic. “Leave him. We go.”
Rawk winced as he changed course to attack a sorcerer. It took a moment to work out that it was a woman, standing with arms raised in front of her. Rawk hesitated, considering the rules for killing unarmed women, then ran her through before common sense fled completely.
He looked around, scanning the darkness to see if he could find who ever had spoken, but the swordsman was right on him, giving him no time. There was a glimmer in the darkness, and Rawk ducked. A sword hummed overhead. He slashed but was moving away again and was never going to hit his target. He found himself close to another sorcerer though, the bearded man they’d followed, and elbowed him in the stomach instead. He would live but probably wouldn’t be doing much for a while, apart from trying to breathe.
With the wall at his back, Rawk paused to catch his own breath. His knee was aching. The old wound on his left arm was aching as well, for some reason. His heart was beating like Grint’s drum. And he thought he could hear a sorcerer muttering the beginnings of a spell. He looked around, wondering what Sylvia was doing to help.
But there was nothing he could do now, because the swordsman was heading towards him, coming out of the darkness like a ship out of the mist. A pirate ship with a pointy prow and evil looking...
Rawk gasped. “Ramaner?”
The general smiled and spun his sword in his hand. “Who did you expect, Rawk?”
“Well... I hadn’t expected anyone to be honest.” Rawk looked around, wondering if Ramaner was distracting him from a different attack. He finally spotted the only sorcerer who was calm enough to think. Balen was in the corner, building a spell. That was Sylvia’s problem. He took a deep breath, wiggling his leg slightly to test his knee, and concentrated on Ramaner.
There was another flurry of swords that Rawk barely survived. Ramaner was about twelve years his junior and it showed. Rawk really did feel like an old man. He was half a second behind. The blows on his new sword shook him. But he did survive and smiled, for show. “I’ll have to tell Weaver what you’ve been up to.”
“Weaver isn’t here, Rawk. I’ve waited a long time for this day.”
“You’re still angry that I slept with your wife ten years ago? She wasn’t even your wife.”
Ramaner’s lip twitched. “It meant so little to you that you can’t even remember when it was? It was eighteen years ago.”
Rawk shrugged. “I didn’t know if you were talking about the first time or the last.”
The general attacked, but it was a sloppy, wild effort that Rawk easily avoided. He smiled as he suddenly saw his opening, probably the only chance he had.
“Come away, General,” the sliver of voice said again, like a knife blade pressed against his cheek.
Rawk tried to ignore it. He licked his lips. Breathed. “It’s been a while since I talked to Nelly. Perhaps I should go visit her after I’ve finished here.”
Ramaner charged in. He was snarling like a wild animal. His eyes were fierce. Rawk fended away a few blows then attacked, pushing back, almost all the way across the room to where Balen watched. The sorcerer threw a spell of some kind that crackled past Rawk’s face, making his skin tingle and his eyes ache. His momentum was lost and the general seemed to regain some composure.
“I intend to kill you, Rawk, but that is not my revenge.”
Rawk nodded. “Well, your revenge was worthless, Ramaner. I didn’t love Maris. Her death was pointless, and it hurt—it still hurts—but not like you were hoping. I will not be eating away at my soul in twenty years time.”
The general laughed. “Maris? Of course she doesn’t matter. I took my revenge soon after you earned it. Why don’t you have a think about what else happened about eighteen years ago?”
“You expect me to remember something from eighteen years ago?” Rawk was going to raise an eyebrow but he almost lost it instead as Ramaner came at him. He ducked, too late, and stumbled as he backed away. He wiped blood away from his forehead. He was going to be having trouble seeing soon enough.
“I stole something from you, Rawk. Just like you stole something from me.” Ramaner’s smile was a sick, twisted thing.
Rawk almost dropped Kaj. He gripped the hilt of the sword tighter as he tried to think. As he tried not to think. “You killed Lady Tapalar? You killed Bree?”
Ramaner smiled some more.
Rawk felt sick. He swallowed. “And it made you feel better? It makes you feel better every day? Was it worth it.” He hesitated for a moment, thinking of Bree, thinking of the tales he had told in her parlor, telling her of the world she would never get to see because of who she was. There was often an evil general. The general always died. Rawk felt the old coldness settling in his chest again. Bree’s death had hurt him once, but it couldn’t any more. Not like Ramaner was hoping. It was obvious the general’s anger was making him lose control, but Rawk found himself focusing. He found his whole world narrowing to the tiny space surrounding his opponent. He could hear each breath and see each twitch. “I won’t go to see Nelly after I kill you, Ramaner, because I would just be disappointed. Being with her would just remind me how far above every other woman Bree stood. Nelly is nothing compared to Bree. You are welcome to her memory for the last minutes of your life. I don’t want her.”
“Don’t you ever—”
Rawk attacked this time, pushing hard, gritting his teet
h at the burning in his knee. Kaj flashed about his head, a strip of polished moonlight. He followed Ramaner across the room, but with each step, Rawk could feel a pressure growing in his head, a warmth in his cheeks. He risked a look around and saw Balen not far away, waving his hands in a dark corner, working hard at his magic.
Rawk stumbled. He felt a searing pain across his arm as he struggled to regain his balance.
There was someone else still in the room. Most of the sorcerers seemed to have fled, but a big fat man stood silhouetted in a doorway, as still as an icy winter night. His robes seemed to suck the light away.
“You will not escape this time, Rawk.” Balen shouted around his spell.
Rawk had battled sorcerers a hundred times before— it was no different to fighting a warrior in a lot of ways— but Ramaner turned to see what was happening. Rawk ducked a distracted swipe, tucked his shoulder and rolled. When he came up onto his knees, he thrust his Kaj forward. He watched it slide between the younger man’s ribs and held the pose for a moment, forming the story in his head as Bree smiled and clapped, playing the part of a giddy noblewoman. And he almost lost his sword as the general toppled over. But the story wasn’t done.
Balen’s spell reached a crescendo.
“Sylvia,” Rawk called.
What was she doing?
Then there was a moment of intense light and Rawk thought it was all over. But it was Balen who died. Thunder filled the room, filled Rawk’s head. And Balen was thrown across the room. He hit the wall with a thud that splintered the rotten timbers, and slid down to the floor.
Rawk struggled to his feet. His ears were ringing, drowning out the sound of his racing heart. He looked around for the fat man, wondering if he had another fight left in his arms and legs. But there was nobody there. Rawk felt the stranger had drifted away like mist on the wind, but he’d probably just left.
He took a breath. Then another. The air tasted strange, but it felt good none-the-less.
Someone touched his shoulder and he jumped. Sylvia.
“Thank you,” he said.
“That is all right.” She started looking at the worst of his wounds. They all hurt, but Rawk already knew that none of them were fatal.
He gestured towards the remains of Balen. “I didn’t think you were going to do anything.”
Sylvia grimaced and poked at a long cut on his chest. She started to say something. Stopped. “The other one has gone.”
Rawk looked to the door where the fat man had watched. He nodded and took a deep breath. “You scared him off.”
“I don’t think so. He was...” She shuddered and didn’t say anything more.
“Well...”
“Indeed.” She looked him up and down. “You look like you could do with some assistance.”
“Thank you.” He leaned on her shoulder as she helped him towards the door. “It’s a long walk to your shop.”
“I will take you to the Rest then go for my supplies.”
“You could have helped sooner.”
Sylvia sighed. “How many times must I tell you, it is not that easy as that?”
“Nothing is ever easy, apparently.” He stopped to looked back over his shoulder. Three dead sorcerers, which meant three more had escaped. He just hoped they were too scared to show their heads again, though he doubted that would be the case with the fat man. And Ramaner. He really hadn’t expected that.
“Do you think Ramaner was in charge?”
Sylvia looked back at the general for a moment too, lying in a pool of thick, liquid darkness. “Perhaps.”
Rawk felt the elf shudder and decided that she was probably correct. With the things she said, and the things she left unsaid. He tried not to think about the fat man because he really just wanted to go home and sleep.
She continued. “I believe we may have broken their power though. At the very least it will take some time for find sorcerers to replace those they have lost in the last few days.”
“So, you may someone knocking on your door very soon. It’s a bit insulting that you weren’t offered a job in the first place, really.”
Sylvia ignored the comment. “What will you tell Weaver?”
“I was hoping you’d tell him.”
“That sounds unlikely.”
“That’s what I though. I think I might retire and not worry about it.”
Faraday
Rawk woke up when the door opened. Weaver stood outline in light for a moment, then stepped into the room.
“What the hell happened, Rawk?”
“When?” He tried to get his head around the morning, but it would probably take more than a couple of seconds, especially with Weaver glaring at him.
“When do you think? Last night. You were see coming out of building down in Grand Smelling.”
“Right. Of course. Well...”
“Ramaner is dead. Did you know that?”
“Yes.”
“What happened?”
“I killed him.” He pushed himself upright and sat on the edge of his bed. He was bandaged in six different places and each of them seemed to hurt more than they had when he went to sleep.
“What? I can’t just let that—”
“Why do you think it was my fault?”
“Because...” Weaver paused, drew in a breath.
“That’s right, Weaver. He hated me much more than I hated him. You know that I was looking for sorcerers.”
“Ramaner was, too.”
“Ramaner was?”
“Yes.”
“Personally? Out there looking for sorcerers?”
Weaver chewed on his bottom lip.
“After dark.”
“What are you saying?”
“I know you liked him, Weaver, but he was with them. He may have even been the one running things. I think it was all some sort of elaborate plan to finally get his revenge on me.”
“That’s ridiculous.”
Rawk shrugged. “Perhaps.”
“He was with sorcerers?”
“Yes. There should have been three of them there.”
“Lakin said there were others there. He didn’t say they were sorcerers.”
“Well, I don’t imagine they were wearing badges or pointy hats with stars on them or anything.”
Weaver slumped down into the chair. “You killed three sorcerers?”
Rawk nodded.
“What did they look like? Did you know them?”
“Only Balen.”
“Only Balen? Nobody else? Well, right then. Right.” Weaver slapped his hands on his knees. It looked as if he as going to get up, but didn’t. “As long as you are all right and all that.”
“I’ll live.”
“Good. I suppose you want me to pay you for three sorcerers.”
“Just add it to the account.”
When Weaver left, Rawk just wanted to stay where he was, but he knew he’d go crazy sitting around in the one small room all day, so he pushed himself slowly to his feet and found come clothes. Ten minutes later, he was in the kitchen reached the hallway at the bottom of the stairs and went to see if there was anyone working in the Vault. Grint was there, sitting on the edge of the stage, looking around.
“What are you doing here?” Rawk asked the dwarf. He sat down at the table closest to the door, not sure he could make the trek all the way across the room.
“Just one last check before or first performance tonight.”
“Tonight? Already?”
Celeste came down the stairs from the street, struggling to carry large stained glass window. Rawk tried to get up to go to help, but if she was struggling he thought he would collapse under the weight. Grint hurried across and would have beaten him anyway.
“What the hell is this?” Grint asked as he took the window off his sister and leaned it against the wall.
“Decorations. There are another eight in the wagon upstairs.”
“Decorations?”
“Yes. We need to build a box ar
ound them so we can put a lamp inside and hang them on the wall.”
Rawk nodded and smiled. “I like it.”
Celeste jumped slightly. “I didn’t see you there, Rawk. Should you be out of bed?”
“Yes. Why? What do you know?”
“I was talking to Sylvia when she came in earlier.”
“Sylvia was in?”
“She is still in your office, I think.”
“Oh.”
As if to prove the point, Sylvia appeared in the doorway, book in one hand, cup of tea in the other. “You should not be out of bed,” the elf said.
“Yes, but...”
Celeste gave him an I told you so look. “And if you wear yourself out today, you will not be able to come tonight.”
“Don’t worry, I’ll be here.”
Grint gave a grunt. “You may be the only one. The word on the street isn’t promising.”
But Rawk smiled. “You’re a dwarf, Grint; nobody is going to admit to anything. But the people who used to see you at the Armory will come to watch. And others will come eventually.” He glanced at Celeste. “And they don’t have to cheer, or tell you how wonderful you are. As long as they turn up and hand over their money, right? That is the real indicator. Let’s just wait and see.”
Grint grunted again.
“They’ll come,” Rawk said. “And they’ll keep coming though it may be a while before they talk about it with their friends.” He glanced at Celeste, then at Sylvia. “People can change, it just won’t happen instantly.”
—O—
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A History of Magic Page 28