“Oh, that. I forgot you were not yourself. Here,” replied the bard with a snigger. He touched Pavel’s forehead.
The sleepiness and his lethargic mood immediately dissipated, leaving him alert and on guard. He could perceive the presence of men nearby, but his senses couldn’t determine their number and locations. Pavel found that uncanny. Encratas had trained him to be aware of his immediate surroundings and use magical energy to enhance such perception. It worked back in the forest, and yet now, something was hindering it.
“I can’t determine where they are, but these fellows are nearby,” he whispered to the bard. “Something’s clouding my hunter’s vision.”
“Nearby? They are scaling the tower as we speak if you must know. And those mages across the bridge are definitely responsible for the sleep and concealment spells. Quite imaginative use too, using passive forms of the enchantments and weaving them into the energy matrices of the area around us,” observed Sheqer clinically. “Impressive. Must be assassins.”
***
“Assassins? Oh, Encratas’s friends,” remembered Pavel.
“I guess so,” replied the bard. “Though they don’t know the crazy hermit’s not at home. They’ll try for the openings and widen them.”
“If they’re any good…” Pavel started to say.
“They are. Quite a sophisticated approach, wouldn’t you agree? They know their stuff, and only those at the highest levels of their profession would dare attack an experienced battlemage in his own stronghold,” said Sheqer, though the casual tone irked Pavel. There were assassins outside, a number from the looks of it, and the demon was treating the situation as if it was an ordinary occurrence.
Pavel brought out the kattari. The hermit let him keep it, together with a longsword and a mace for practice. Then he changed his mind, sheathing the deadly daggers. Moving quietly, he sat up and grabbed the mace under his bed. Unfortunately, the hermit didn’t leave him any armor, so what he had on was a loose shirt with baggy trousers.
“You do know our rooms are the ones with the first openings in the tower? I do believe they’ll aim for your window and mine,” said the demon, who then added as an afterthought. “This is exciting.”
Pavel glanced at the opening. He didn’t see any grappling hooks. That meant the intruders were using hand claws and foot spikes. Probably ensorcelled, to boot. He turned to the demon.
“Could you tell me how many?”
“Eight on their way up. Four to each window. Their friends are waiting below with aimed crossbows. Plus, the mages. Two of them, now I am sure, and still busy with some sort of ritual across the bridge,” recited Sheqer.
Damn, thought the man. A concealment spell of his own would help him ambush the intruders, but he hadn’t reached that part of his training yet.
“If you want, I could handle them for you,” came Sheqer’s suggestion.
For a moment, Pavel was sorely tempted to accept the offer. Then he realized that the demon would be feeding off human souls, and that would make Pavel no different from the malevolent creatures he would soon be hunting. It was a grave matter for which he would surely be held accountable.
“No,” he answered sternly.
“You saw through it, didn’t you?” grinned Sheqer. The man was badly tempted to bash the bard’s face with the mace.
“Make yourself useful,” he told the demon instead. “Fill the rooms and corridors with fog when they’re inside. Make sure we can see through it.”
“Only if you won’t use me as bait again.”
“Why the demand? You’re oath sworn to obey me,” remarked a visibly annoyed Pavel.
“But I could make it difficult for you. In so many little ways,” muttered the resentful demon. The fish incident clearly wasn’t to its liking.
“Fine. I won’t use you as bait now,” answered Pavel.
“I’ll take that. I’d rather go for something more permanent, but circumstances do conspire against me,” said the bard.
The Azat told Sheqer to wait until the assassins had entered the room before unleashing the spell. The bastards wouldn’t enter the room if they saw it full of a strange mist. Clubbing the first one wouldn’t be a good idea either. He’d just open himself up to counterattacks by crossbow bolts and magical spells. Once the attackers realized they been detected, Pavel could very well expect hell to be unleashed on the tower.
“Which room would be the first entry point?” whispered Pavel.
“Yours.”
9
Kattari and Nakhs
‘A fucking nakh.
Never thought I’d see one in these parts,’
the irrational observation arose in his mind.
By the light of the moon filtering into the room, Pavel could see a circular dark glow shining through the stone around the window. It was half the size of a man in diameter, enough for their visitors to sneak into the chamber. The spell was slowly and silently dissolving the stone into nothingness. The apprentice was shocked. He didn’t expect that the tower of the battlemage could easily be invaded.
Fool. No stronghold is impregnable, his training reminded him.
The pair had positioned themselves outside the room. Pavel could have remained on the bed, feigning sleep, but he decided the risk wasn’t worth it. He had no idea how the assassins would react to the presence of a sleeping man. They could kill him with a projectile weapon before they made their entrance or introduced themselves by throwing a noxious gas orb at him.
These are assassins, Pavel reminded himself, and had at their disposal myriad silent ways to handle a helpless, sleeping man in their way. At least, Sheqer had assured him that he was included in the spell which concealed the demon. But being within its folds made the apprentice battlemage uneasy and very uncomfortable. It was, according to the bard, an ability used by demons to hide themselves and their victims at the moment of capture. And feasting.
“Remarkable,” the bard whispered at his back as the glowing circle continued burning through the stone. It was a comment met by a sharp nudge from Pavel’s elbow. A muffled cry came from Sheqer.
“You didn’t have to do that, you bastard of a Master. They can’t hear me, though your whispers will definitely attract notice.”
Serves you right, blasted demon, thought the man with satisfaction. You tell me this only now?
He watched intently as the magical band slowly dissolved the stone within its circumference. The man was, like the bard, impressed. The kind of equipment and the way the attackers acted spoke highly of the skill of the assassins and the organizational preparations behind them. Finally, the affected portion of the wall was gone, and a man dressed in thin, black leather armor entered the room.
I’ve got a larger window now, the silly notion entered Pavel’s thoughts.
The intruder stepped to the side, still crouching with a short sword at the ready. One by one, the rest filed in, armed with different weapons. Pavel could identify the arms and noted that all were designed for close-up fighting.
As soon as the four were inside, a dark miasma filled the room. Pavel could see the assassins were startled by the arrival of the sudden mist. He assumed they believed everything necessary had been done to negate any defensive enchantment protecting the tower and the spaces where they intended to enter. A grim smile appeared on the Azat’s face. He doubted if they ever expected to encounter demonic conjurations.
Then Pavel sensed a source of magical energy from the four assassins. One had brought out a round metal object from the folds of his dark attire and was preparing to activate it. It was a talisman of some sort, that was plain to the apprentice battlemage. Even quiescent, it gave off a faint blue glow when exposed to Sheqer’s mist.
At that moment, Pavel’s hands instinctively dropped to the kattari and immediately threw the weapons at the assassins. One buried itself at the throat of the one holding the amulet, while the other pierced the left eye of an assassin watching the door. Then he jumped into the room, mace held h
igh.
A blow squashed the head of one still looking at the talisman, and a sideways movement brought the mace into contact with the face of the remaining killer, crushing the left side of it. It was over in a few seconds, and Pavel noticed that no sound emanated from the blows he struck or from the bodies as they dropped into the floor. It initially surprised him. The attacks were strong enough for him to feel the sickening vibrations as the steel mace crunched bone and muscle. He glanced back at the demon.
Sheqer was leaning on one side of the doorway, grinning all the time. Pavel’s brain told him the obvious. The bard’s mist also deadened sound. Then the demon pointed to the next room. He immediately pulled out the kattari from a torn, sliced throat, resulting in a copious flow of blood drenching the stone floor. He quickly moved to the corridor, the stabbing blade in one hand and a mace in the other.
The mist was a lot thinner outside. Gone was the full concealment it afforded, and instead, the wisps now gave only partial visibility. The increased illumination provided by the moon through the enlarged openings became a detriment. Worse, the man found himself face-to-face with an assassin who just came out of the bard’s room. Similarly clad as the ones he had killed, the man proved to be faster than Pavel, and his blade sliced through the apprentice’s shirt. It was an incredibly quick thrust and the now wounded Azat felt the blade cut through the side of his stomach as he veered to the side, trying to avoid the incoming strike. A counterblow with the mace smashed the attacker’s face in return. Fortunately, the diminished mist continued to quench any sound. The crash of the body to the floor would have been noisy.
Pavel didn’t wait for the others to come out of the room. He rushed in, threw the kattari knife at a surprised and gaping intruder, and struck at another. The thrown knife again did its lethal work, burying itself in the exposed neck of its target. But the mace missed as the assassin deftly stepped to one side and flung an open hand at his bleeding attacker. A surge of force caught Pavel and threw him against the wall. The other assassin raised his own weapon and swiftly moved toward the momentarily dazed apprentice. The dizzy man could see the weapon the killer was holding.
A fucking nakh. Never thought I’d see one in these parts, the irrational observation arose in his mind. Pavel knew the only advantage he had, surprise, was now gone. And he also realized that the men he was facing were adepts in their field. The apprentice knew he had been fortunate, but even luck had its limits. He tried to react but found himself moving slowly. Too slowly for his liking.
That cursed sword must be poisoned, he realized, though Pavel also wondered why he didn’t die immediately or experience violent and painful muscle spasms, the usual symptoms of impending death from such venom. He should have been immediately immobilized, considering the kind of wound the assassin had inflicted. The blade has sliced clean through, though the cut narrowly avoided his intestines. But at that point, it didn’t matter. The killer, armed with the long-clawed weapons gripped in both hands, called tiger claws, was nearly upon him.
***
For Pavel, faced with certain death, time seemed to slow down. He could see the nakh-equipped assassin closing in. At the same time, the one who evaded his blow had moved to a crouching position facing the door, evidently waiting for other possible surprises. The apprentice could feel his body weakening as the poison gradually advanced through his veins.
He was surprised to find that he saw where the venom was in his body and where it was spreading. Yet something in him was resisting the lethal fluid, though he realized the potency of the poison. It was an extremely powerful one; a drop would have been enough to kill him outright, and Pavel had absorbed what was placed on a third of the length of the blade. He could even feel his open wound healing by itself, the skin steadily closing on the vicious cut.
Yet with mortality approaching in the form of a black-clad masked assassin, something inside him broke into a fury so great that he could barely breathe as a result. Some part of his mind adamantly refused to accept what was happening, despite the physical helplessness affecting his body. He was not only weakened but also still dizzy from the impact of his head hitting the wall.
I won’t be gutted like a helpless, dumb pig, the sharp, angry thought ran through his mind. It would have been a natural reaction except for the fearsome, grim coldness and the hungry annoyance which accompanied the feeling. For Pavel the mortal, it was as if something dark and truly terrifying had been disturbed from its reassuring slumber. It wasn’t fully awake but gained enough consciousness to swat a troublesome fly.
Something erupted from the helpless apprentice, a roiling cloud of furious dark fog. It grabbed the assassin, and then misty tendrils firmly took hold of the legs and arms of the killer. In a matter of seconds, the tenuous chains spread-eagled the man and then pulled in opposite directions. Sprays of blood and gore showered the room, painting the walls and the floor red in its gruesome aftermath.
Mercifully, Sheqer’s thinning mist still deadened sound, and whatever cries of horror, pain, and anguish echoed in the room went unheard. The remaining assassin gawked at Pavel, too shocked to move. The apprentice looked at him, and a surge of angry energy flowed into the intruder’s body. If the apprentice had had the opportunity to look at himself right at that moment, he would have been shocked to see his irises were gone. His eyes had been replaced by a seemingly deep, black hue that drew one into an endless depth.
Even as the bizarre occurrence happened, Pavel was already losing consciousness from the twin effects of the injury to his head and the effects of the poison. Yet even dazed, he could sense the internal organs of the man as the strange and vicious energy lashed out. The enraged part of his mind took over and violently tore at the man’s insides.
Somehow, Pavel could see the soft tissue being shredded to pieces. Glee and anger mixed in his mind as the retaliation was meted out. The assassin’s eyes rolled in his head, showing only white orbs in the sockets of his eyes. The body fell on its back as blood poured from the mouth, ears, and eye sockets. The small red fountain gushing from the mouth was the last sight Pavel saw before he lost consciousness.
***
“Awake? Good,” a voice greeted him as he woke up. He was back in his bed, though it was covered by the blood of the dead. Unfortunately, the fight in his room was also a messy, blood-soaked one. As he turned his head to the side, Pavel could see the bodies on the floor. The apprentice presumed he must have been out for several minutes, not that he expected the demon to immediately clean up the room.
“Hey! Look at me,” called out Sheqer as he held Pavel by the chin and turned the man’s face toward him. “The good news is the wound has healed. That’s one impressive ability. The bad news is something has to be done about the poison in your body. “
“Heal it?” asked Pavel weakly.
“Not my line of work, sorry to say,” answered the bard. “Whoever heard of my kind being healers? The nerve!”
Pavel merely stared at Sheqer. He knew that what the bard said was true. The poison was still in his body, held back by a powerful recuperative ability he didn’t think he had.
“What do we do?” asked the man, weakly.
Sheqer looked at him carefully before answering.
“You are a hard man to kill, Master. The poison I could remove, being tainted and strengthened by malevolence. A dark spell, I mean. A minor one, but it ensured that the venom remained on the blade in full strength and virulence. It did increase its potency, but that’s a given. With your permission, I could remove what poison is in your body. Healing the aftermath is your problem,” explained Sheqer lengthily.
Pavel nodded and saw the demon’s hand immediately plunge to where the wound was. Prickles of pain started and then increased in intensity. It was tolerable, yet strangely, the man also noticed that his body was also resisting the demon’s energy. The hurtful mass of stings he was suffering resulted from the poison being drained by the demon’s power, which Pavel’s body was also trying to reject.
Sheqer finally withdrew his arm, and the man saw that the bard held something in a cupped hand. The demon threw it to the floor where it gave a slight and faint sizzle. Pavel could see the skin of the demon’s arm had turned crimson and was marked with small dark spots. At the same time, he saw Sheqer’s magic reasserting itself, quickly fixing the damage.
“You’re got a nasty body there, Master. It felt like my arm was dissolving. Worse than purification magic.”
“I am sorry. I didn’t know it would react that way,” replied Pavel. He was quickly recovering his strength and even the dizziness was gone.
“What would you do without me?” commented the demon, its voice marked with disgust. “Now, I am a nursemaid.”
“Live a long, though boring life?” smiled Pavel in reply.
“You? Don’t make me laugh. You could have just ripped through them, and we both could have avoided this loving moment,” replied Sheqer with clear resentment.
“Ripped through them? What do you think I am? A supernatural warrior of some sort? I have abilities, yes, but they won’t be enough to do what you said,” commented Pavel acerbically.
“To the hells with your mortal mind. You limit yourself, oh, Most Ignorant Master,” came Sheqer’s sarcastic reply.
Pavel abruptly stood up, twinges of pain running through his muscles. He still hadn’t fully recovered despite his body’s mysterious healing abilities.
“We still have those mages and the men below the tower,” he told Sheqer.
“They withdrew when the last assassin died. Knowing their ilk, they won’t take this lightly. They’ll be back. More prepared and in greater numbers,” the bard replied in a thoughtful tone. “That would be some time in the future, though. They’ll be assessing what went wrong. At least, you added to the hermit’s reputation as a fearsome battlemage. Hopefully, they won’t learn of your involvement. That would be bad.”
My Name is Ruin Page 9