Richard Baker: Avenger

“Ah, how delicious.” The creature sneered. “While we dance, the rest of your family dies. Perhaps I should let you go to them before I slay you.”

“You lie!” Geran retorted automatically. He had to believe the monster was toying with him, trying to urge him into a rash attack. If more devils were loose in Lasparhall, stealing into the harmach’s chambers-or worse yet, Natali’s or Kirr’s-then every moment he was delayed here might come with a horrible cost indeed.

He traded passes with the barbazu again, his steel striking sparks from its ironlike claws as they exchanged places. Quickly he cleared the welling fear for his family from his mind, and summoned up the calm for spellcasting. This time he charged his sword with a crackling aura of blue-white lightning that threw garish shadows against the walls as it danced along the edge. The bearded devil bared its fangs in defiance and leaped to meet him again, but this time its hard scales did not stop the sword’s bite. Lightning seared its red flesh, freezing it in place with powerful convulsions. Before the monster could recover, Geran slashed it through the throat. It, too, vanished in a sudden burst of black smoke, and the bedchamber fell still for a moment.

Blood dripped from his raked flesh to the wooden floorboards. Geran gritted his teeth against the burning pain of the wounds, and staggered to the door. Pausing only a moment to summon a better spell-shield to defend himself, he threw open the door and hurried out into the passageway. Shouts of alarm, screams, and the ringing sound of blade meeting blade echoed throughout the old manor.

Someone means to eradicate the Hulmasters this night, he realized-all of us. It was the second time in half a year that someone had tried to destroy the Hulmasters in their home. His cousin Sergen had tried to murder the family during his coup attempt the preceding spring, attacking Griffonwatch with summoned wraiths while his mercenaries waited to cut down anyone fleeing the castle. Sergen was dead now, but someone else clearly wanted the Hulmasters out of the way. Rhovann? he wondered. His old rival certainly held no end of malice for him, but indiscriminate murder was not like Rhovann. The Verunas, perhaps? Or someone else who wanted to make sure the Hulmasters never returned to Hulburg?

“Damn it,” he snarled into the darkened hallway. He whirled around, trying to make sense of the chaos. To the right were the rooms of the young Hulmasters. In the opposite direction lay Harmach Grigor’s chamber. The harmach was certainly the first target of the attackers, but Geran knew what his uncle would want him to do. Grigor would want him to make sure that Natali and Kirr were saved from this slaughter, regardless of the cost.

A child’s scream rang out in the darkness. “Natali,” Geran murmured. Without another thought he turned to his right and sprinted down the hallway, his sword bared in his hand. The harmach probably had Shieldsworn bodyguards close to hand already; if fortune smiled just a little, they might be able to hold off the attack for a while. He turned the corner at the manor’s grand stair, and found several men and women in the harmach’s colors lying dead or unconscious at the top of the steps. Two men Geran had never seen before were crumpled on the steps by the guards. They wore no colors at all other than their well-worn leather jerkins and dark, hooded cloaks, the sort of nondescript garb that scores of sellswords in Thentia’s dockside taverns wore every day. Whoever was behind the attack had likely hired any killers he could find for the task-or wanted it to appear that way-and then reinforced the common sellswords with summoned devils.

Geran did not pause to study the scene more closely, leaping over one of the fallen guards and continuing down the hallway. He came to Natali’s chamber, found the door standing open, and burst inside.

Two more Hulmaster servants were dead on the floor before him. Over them stood three more sellswords, already turning toward the corner of the nursery, where Erna huddled with her children. One of the sellswords, a bald man with Theskian tattooes on his scalp, raised a cleaverlike blade and seized Kirr’s arm to haul him away from his mother. Natali and Kirr both wailed, but Erna glimpsed Geran past her assailants. “Geran!” she shrieked. “Help us!”

The two mercenaries between him and the Theskian holding Kirr wheeled about at her cry. “One more step and we’ll slay the lot!” the first snarled. “Drop the sword, and we’ll let the small ones go!”

He hesitated a moment before realizing that the man had to be lying. They had no intention of leaving any Hulmasters alive this night. Instead of releasing his blade, he fixed his eye on Kirr and the mercenary who gripped his arm, and formed a spell of teleportation in his mind. “ Sierollanie dir mellar,” he said in a clear voice.

An instant of utter darkness and icy cold flashed across his senses-then he was where Kirr had been standing, with the Theskian’s hand locked on his left arm, while Kirr stood dumbfounded in the doorway where Geran had been a heartbeat before. He rarely found use for the spell of transposition, but in this situation it was exactly the surprise Geran needed. The Theskian mercenary’s eyes opened wide in astonishment, and he opened his mouth to say something before the heavy basket hilt of Geran’s backsword slammed between his eyes with a sickening crunch. The fellow staggered back and collapsed to the floor; Geran turned to engage the remaining two swordsmen. “Kirr, get out of the hallway and find a place to hide!” he cried. “Erna, get Natali into the washroom and barricade the door!” Then his blade met the hard parry of the first of the two enemies he now faced, and the fight was on in earnest.

Unlike the Theskian sellsword lying motionless on the floor, these two were now fully cognizant of his skill and magic. He had no more surpises for them, and they were good enough blades that he couldn’t simply overwhelm them with a quick assault. He tried anyway, and succeeded in driving them back two steps toward the doorway, steel crashing against steel as their swords danced with his. Behind the two mercenaries, Kirr glanced left and right down the hallway. “More of them are coming, Geran!” he shouted. Then he darted out of sight to the left-Geran hoped to find some secure bolthole where the assassins couldn’t find him. He risked a peek over his shoulder and saw Natali and her mother pushing the door of the garderobe closed behind them.

“A futile gesture,” said one of the swordsmen dueling Geran. “We’ll have all of them within a quarter hour anyway!”

“Not while I still stand here, you won’t,” Geran retorted. He resumed his attack, trying to beat down the assassin’s guard, but now his two opponents were working together. Whichever he attacked gave ground and went on the defensive, while the other pressed hard and tried to catch him with his guard out of place. He grimaced, beginning to wonder if he’d been wise to transpose himself into the bedchamber after all. He’d caught the one holding Kirr off guard, but in doing so he’d put two good swordsmen between him and the door. His quick stroke had left him pinned in the children’s chamber, unable to fight clear quickly or affect events anywhere else in the manor. The youngest Hulmaster was out in the dark hallway somewhere, all too likely in need of Geran’s help, and he could hear more fighting echoing throughout Lasparhall’s fragrant chambers.

Steel flickered and shrilled in another exchange, and Geran ground his teeth together in growing frustration. He had to get by these two and find out what else was happening! Pressing forward recklessly with a spell of attack on his lips, he managed to shock the sword out of one man’s hand with another lightning-blade spell. The man yelped and moved back, holding his sword hand, but Geran paid for it with a shallow cut to his left calf as the fellow’s comrade struck back at him. Then the doorway filled again, this time with two more assassins and the hot, sulfurous stink of another bearded devil.