David Dalglish: A Dance of Blades

Back into the dance, but just a moment, just long enough to confuse the remaining two. No time left to mess around. The pain in his side was escalating, and his fingers tingled. Assaulting the nearest, he unleashed a furious display, his swords weaving around the woman’s shortsword as if it were motionless. He spun as he cut her, whirling toward the last Serpent in a single smooth motion. The thief blocked only one of the two sabers, the other taking his life.

“Damn it,” Haern said, pausing to catch his breath. He gingerly touched the bolt in his side, wincing as his fingers made it move the slightest bit. Too deep, he’d have to push it through and pray there’d been no poison. Before he could, he heard movement above. Too late, he brought up his sabers, but instead of the expected bolt a single Serpent fell bleeding to the ground, crumpling in a heap. From the rooftop, Zusa waved at him.

“The one you don’t see is the one that kills you,” she called down to him.

Despite his exhaustion, he gave her a smile.

“Why are you here?” he asked as she climbed down to the street.

“Milady wishes the Serpents punished, and so I’ve come to help you. Clearly you need it.”

He gestured to the bolt in his side.

“Clearly.”

Without giving him warning, she stepped forward, grabbed the shaft, and pushed. He clenched his jaw and ground his teeth together to hold in his scream. Warm blood dripped down the small of his back. Zusa pushed aside his cloak, retrieved the bolt, and then held it close to her eyes so she might see in the moonlight.

“Not poisoned,” she said. “Either one of the gods favors you, or they were too stupid and lazy to prepare for you properly.”

“Perhaps both?” He grinned at her, but the grin faltered. “Sorry about your arm.”

“Sorry about your chest.”

So she had noticed. He chuckled.

“If I stumble from the blood loss, make sure you kill me. I’m not sure who would be happiest to torture me, but I’d rather not find out.”

“They’d probably auction the right. More money.”

“Aren’t you a cheery soul?” He pointed further down the street. “Come on. The armory isn’t far.”

He led the way, Zusa trailing behind him, like a feminine version of his own shadow. Silent as ghosts they crisscrossed their way toward their goal. Haern checked the alleys and Zusa the rooftops for any more potential ambushes. At the armory they stopped and peered around the corner of a nearby home.

“No guards on the outside,” Zusa whispered.

“That would give them away. They think this place is safe, otherwise they wouldn’t come here.”

“Nowhere is safe in this city.”

“Well,” Haern said, drawing his sabers, “let’s go reinforce that lesson for them.”

“How many entrances?”

He thought for a moment, then held up a single finger.

“They boarded up their windows. Together, through the door. No mercy, Zusa. Can you handle that?”

She gave him a look that showed how insulted she was.

“I was raised in the heart of Karak’s temple,” she said. “Mercy is not my bedfellow.”

As if to prove the point, she rushed ahead, and silently cursing her, he followed. The door was locked, but when Haern went to draw his lockpicker’s kit, she only shook her head. She mouthed something to him, but he only caught half the words. She wanted to try something, though, that much he understood. Putting her hands on the lock, she closed her eyes, and to him it looked like she was praying. Shadows slipped off her fingertips like water dripping from a melting wedge of ice. A moment later, they both heard an audible click from within the lock.

Her balance wavered, but when she caught it, she shot him a wink. Haern rolled his eyes.

“Ladies first,” he said, loud enough to spur her into action. She flung open the door, and in he followed, two deadly specters in the night. A single Serpent waited on guard, looking half-awake. They cut his throat as they rushed past. He never even had chance to cry out alarm. They bashed through a door and into an elaborate room, one that instantly felt familiar to Haern. It was like so many others of the posh headquarters the guilds created, all curtains and pillows, alcohol and sex.

Their first warning something was wrong came when the door behind them slammed shut. The second was when William Ket greeted them with a warm smile from his chair on the far side of the room.

“Well, well, well, is it not the Watcher?” he said, sounding far too pleased with himself. “And you’ve brought a friend. Excellent. Did you think I’d be foolish enough to think you couldn’t find me here, not with your…storied reputation?”

“The curtains,” Zusa whispered, her body tensed like a cat before a pounce.

“I know.”

William’s grin spread.

“Alyssa called off her mercenaries, the silly girl. She had us on the run, but then suddenly she flooded Veldaren with bored, unemployed men with a penchant for violence. How could I not take advantage of such a gift?”

The curtains pushed aside, revealing armored men standing in every little alcove. Haern estimated at least thirty. He felt his blood run cold. So this would be how it ended. His side ached, every breath hurt his chest, his head pounded from exhaustion, and standing before him, William Ket laughed.

“Don’t you give in,” Zusa whispered, her voice almost a hiss. “They are children to you, you understand? We are the lions. We are the hunters.”

Haern thought of his moment in Karak’s temple, when he’d been in the very presence of the Lion of Karak. It had roared, and he’d gazed into an emptiness that seemed to go on forever. He remembered the terror, and he realized that he’d been far more afraid then than he was now. Focusing upon that fear, he knew he could be that lion to these men. He looked at them as they waited for the order to attack, let them see into his eyes that same emptiness, that same certainty of their death. Pulling his hood low, he let the shadows of the torchlight scatter his features. Beside him, Zusa wrapped her cloak tight about her body and then hunched low.

“Kill them,” William said.

Haern went left, Zusa right. He felt every nerve in his body firing, and he gave in to his instincts completely. This was the beast Thren had created over the years, day in and day out with training, practice, lectures, and tutors. This was the monster whose teeth had been sharpened by half a decade skulking in the shadows slaughtering the thieves of the night. His sabers were a blur as he cut down the first, the mercenary’s axe too slow to block. The two closest rushed in, wielding longswords. He parried their thrusts, which felt slow, as if his opponents fought in molasses. Blood soaked his sabers as the rest came rushing in, swinging with their clubs, maces, and swords.

Cutting, twisting, never staying in the same place. As his feet shifted and turned, he thought of the hours he’d been forced to stand in strange stances to pacify a tutor. As he curled his body around thrusts, he remembered the complicated stretches another tutor had taught him to do every morning. As he slashed and dodged, he thought of the words of his father.

They can’t kill you until you let them. That is why you must be better. That is why you must be perfect. Never, ever let them think they can win.

Said to an eleven-year-old boy. More than anything, he wished his father could be there to see what he had created. One after another the mercenaries fell. They knew how to bully. They knew how to put the strength of their arms into their blows, and they could handle the rudimentary thrusts and parries of the battlefield. But Haern felt himself beyond them, beyond anything. They scored cuts on him, to be sure, but he felt the pain in a distant place locked in the back of his mind. They would not kill him. He would not let them. His wrist might bleed from a lucky stab of a sword. His chest might ache from where a club struck him before he could dodge. His eyes might sting from blood running into them from where a blade slashed his forehead. But they would not kill him.