Rosemary Jones: Cold Steel and Secrets Part 3

“What could have done this?” Elyne exclaimed.

Sarfael started to make some comforting but meaningless remark. He doubted any besides Elyne would mourn the murderous seer with his delight in undead pets and rubbish-stuffed rooms.

The firelight flickered in the glass eyes of the stuffed cat that crouched upon the stone floor. Blood dripped from the creature’s mouth.

Sarfael gave a shout of warning as the undead cat leaped for Elyne.

She ducked the attack, rolling to one side, and then reversing to strike with some force. Elyne skewered the undead creature precisely through the heart. The cat swiped at her with one paw. Elyne fell back. The creature followed.

“The head,” Sarfael shouted, “cut off the head. If you can’t hit that, go for the legs. Slow it down.”

He circled in the opposite direction, looking for a good hit.

With a silent snarl, the creature leaped to the top of the kitchen table and then whirled in the opposite direction. Elyne chased after it, but the undead creature moved with great speed, dodging her strikes and clawing out with one and then the other paw.

It leaped off the table, slashing right and left, and herding Elyne into one corner.

She parried with a lighting series of strokes, even cutting off the cat’s tail, which fell with a sawdust thud to the floor. But her rapier was too light to cut off the cat’s head, even as she notched its ragged ears and slashed deep cuts into its neck and legs.

Glancing around the kitchen, Sarfael saw the kindling tumbling from the stack next to the kitchen fire. One stick lay half in and half out of the fire, just outside the reach of Karion’s outstretched hand.

“Clever,” Sarfael said. “You knew what was needed.”

He snatched the burning brand from the fire and vaulted the kitchen table to belabor the cat with it.

The undead creature recoiled from the fire but its dust-dry fur caught the spark. In moments, flames engulfed it.

Elyne leaped away, shouting, “Drive it into the fireplace or it will set the whole place alight.”

Sarfael hooked the beast under its belly with the burning stick of kindling and threw it across the room into the fireplace. With a mighty whumpf, it exploded into bits of fur and ash. One green glass eye rolled across the floor to stop at their feet.

After a moment of stunned silence, Sarfael said, “Do we keep searching? Do you think Montimort is still here?”

Elyne crouched on the floor, apparently studying tracks in the dust. “Cheese,” she said suddenly.

“What?”

She pointed to the pantry. “Montimort probably headed there when the cat attacked.”

Elyne walked into the long narrow room lined with shelves and packed with boxes and jars, calling Montimort’s name softly. Sarfael followed. The place smelled strongly of cheese.

Peering into one dark corner, Elyne crouched down. “Come out,” she said. “It’s gone. You’re safe.”

A muffled squeak responded.

“No more arguments,” Elyne said in the same firm tone she used when she told her students to practice again. “We need to leave now.”

A thin brown rat slid out from the corner. Sitting upright, it curled its forepaws into its chest. Its whiskers twitched in a familiar way.

“Montimort!” said Sarfael. The rat tilted his head in a manner very reminiscent of the boy. “That’s an interesting trick.”

“But dangerous,” Elyne said, holding out one hand so the rat could climb up her arm and disappear into the hood of her cloak. “If a fight goes badly, he drops into the rat form automatically and scurries away. But his mastery over the change is poor and he doesn’t always change back as quickly. It’s one of the reasons he ran from the Dead Rats. They kept trying to beat better control into him. Which, of course, is the worst way to teach anyone.”

“Do the other students know?” Sarfael asked as they left Karion’s house.

“No. That’s why he only practices with me after the others have left. First dozen times I thrust a sword at him, he changed instantly. Poof. Montimort gone, and away ran the rat. He’s gotten better since then. He managed to hold his form when those claws attacked, although that might have been because they had such a tight grip on him.”

The rat inside her hood, Montimort, popped up his head and snorted at her assessment.

“How did you acquire this student?” Sarfael wondered.

“He came to me,” Elyne said. “There he was one night, bruised and bloody, on my doorstep. He begged me to teach him how to fight. How could I turn him away?”

Mavreen had begged him too. Begged him to teach her all his tricks, so she could add a rogue’s fighting skills to her mastery over spells. So she could destroy the Red Wizard who murdered her family.

“You can’t,” he said to Elyne. “You can’t refuse. Not when you see their heart and soul in their eyes. Not when you know how much it means.”

Dawn faded into bright morning before Montimort regained his human form. Elyne hugged him fiercely when he sidled out of the storage closet where they’d left the rat.

Then she smacked him firmly on the side of his head.

“Don’t do that again!” she said. “Running off. Not telling me.”

Sarfael watched the scolding with tired amusement. He’d long ago trained himself to doze on his feet. Rather like his horse, when he considered it. But it had been a long night, made longer by Elyne’s nervous pacing alternating with her bouts of attacking the practice butts with any weapon close at hand. At one point, he suggested that she go home and he wait for the boy. But the look she gave him indicated that she could practice blows on his body as well as the straw-covered target, and he’d kept quiet after that.

“But I have it, the key, the word we needed,” Montimort said. “I can trigger the spell upon the box and summon the crown to us.”

“You’re sure?” said Elyne. “That the spell will work?”

“I’m certain,” Montimort replied. “But we need to be outside the city. And high. Upland Rise.”

“But I thought the box was for carrying the crown into the city,” Sarfael said, remembering Karion’s tale. Upland Rise was a wasteland outside the city, stripped of its trees in Lord Neverember’s recent rebuilding of the docks.

“I spent days studying it,” said Montimort. The excited boy nearly twitched out of his clothes with excitement. His voice rose and sweat gleamed on his face. “The spell will only work on Upland Rise. We have to go tomorrow night. At moonset.”

“After dark it’s not safe,” Elyne said. “Not without a large group.”

“We have to do it then,” Montimort insisted.

Sarfael looked at him with narrowed eyes. How could the boy be so sure?

“Very well,” Elyne said. Obviously she had no doubts about Montimort’s sudden revelations. “I’ll go to Arlon and we’ll assemble the Nashers. You’ll need protection out there. And we’ll need to leave the city throughout the day, in small groups, or we’ll attract the attention of one of General Sabine’s patrols. Sarfael, you bring him last.”

“Moonset,” repeated Montimort, sounding as if he were reciting remembered instructions. Sarfael wondered again where he’d learned that lesson.

“We will meet you there,” Elyne promised before she left.

Sarfael remained behind. The boy fidgeted under his regard.

“How did you find the key?” he asked. “The word that you needed?”

Montimort shrugged. “Karion knew it. He talked so much about the box, knew its history so well. I realized he had to have the key. He kept hinting as much when we were there.”

“So you figured that out,” Sarfael said. “But how did you get the word from him? Last time he saw you, he tried to kill you.”