Metal mage 5, p.28
Metal Mage 5, page 28
We passed by the two guards at the gate, and the Baroness nodded kindly to each. To my shock, they actually returned the gesture with the slightest hint of a smile. Then we strolled arm in arm across the bridge, and Baroness Batonova spoke at last.
I didn’t have to ask to know she’d performed the same enchantment as she had at House Fehryn. I could feel her magic sift through the air around us, and I knew no one could hear what was said.
“You did well for House Quyn,” she began. “I was pleased to know the leader will be saved.”
We slowed to a stop at the mouth of the bridge, and I glanced down at the obscure woman who kept her arm wrapped in mine.
“You seem to gather news pretty quickly around here,” I pointed out. “I helped them not six hours ago.”
The Baroness sent me a coy smile, and I had to acknowledge it was an incredibly attractive look on her, if not for the ghostly pale eye that met mine. That part was just too fucking creepy.
“I pay attention,” she informed me. “It is a talent of mine.”
I cocked a brow. “Is travelling far distances in an impossibly short time one of your talents, too?”
She laughed lightly and flashed her teeth as she did. “You’re determined to figure me out, aren’t you, Mason Flynt?” The Baroness traced a slender finger across my arm, and I tried to suppress the disconcerting chill it gave me. “It’s quite charming of you.”
“I’ve never met a Tenebrae Mage,” I continued casually. “I’ve always been curious about their more rare powers.”
“You have rare powers yourself,” she countered. “Perhaps we are well matched in this way.”
I glanced away rather than meet her implying gaze. “My powers only get me so far,” I finally admitted, “but yours seem to win you the favor of any house in Nalnora.”
She nodded thoughtfully. “The elves value that which furthers their needs. I simply provide services they cannot seek elsewhere.”
I considered this for a moment, but I didn’t like the sound of it. Power over shadows and sound could be a dangerous weapon in the wrong hands, and as I imagined being on the Baroness’ wrong side, my pulse quickened, and I casually pulled her an inch closer to my side.
She seemed to like being there, and she pressed her breasts gently against my arm as she leaned to murmur in my ear.
“They are fools,” she said with a small grin. “You know this as well.”
I returned the grin and sent the woman a slight nod. With her as close to me as this, I could smell the tangy scent of her, and it reminded me of honeysuckle and some exotic fruit I couldn’t place. It was somewhat intoxicating though, and I found myself instinctively leaning closer to her.
Her strange eyes gazed deeply into my own, and she tilted her lips ever so slightly up to me as she continued. “You are in danger, my friend,” she purred.
I quickly glanced over my shoulder and back across the bridge to where the guards stood with their eyes glued to us. When I looked back to the Baroness, her coy mask was gone, and her two-toned eyes studied me intently.
“Look out for Onym and Oryk,” she warned, and she curled her smooth palm around my bicep. “They follow their own orders.”
I nodded at this and remembered the brief look I’d seen the silver-haired brothers exchange. “Yeah, I figured as much,” I told her.
The Baroness looked like she had more to say, but she quickly drew her wandering hand away and returned to her sultry demeanor as the doors of the house opened behind us
Onym and his brother exited with their troops, and the elves moved in two tight lines. Each warrior had a glaive of a different style strapped to their back, some metal and some translucent.
I counted at least four daggers strapped to each of the brothers’ legs, and they both had a serrated saber on each hip.
I briefly wondered which of these weapons would most likely be turned on me.
The entire army seemed to move as one as they crossed the bridge, and they halted as one too when Onym and Oryk stopped beside me and Baroness Batonova.
“Good luck, my friends,” the Baroness purred as she finally unwound herself from my arm. “May you move like shadows.”
As she spoke, I felt a peculiar sensation wash over me, and Onym’s eyes fell shut as a spark of energy seemed to vibrate through my skin. I instinctively looked at the Tenebrae Mage, but her eyes were settled on Onym as she came to his side.
When he looked down at her, he murmured something in Elvish, and I noticed he called her Nulena.
The Baroness smiled and grazed her fingers along his cheek in an extremely familiar way before she stepped aside and gestured for the elves to pass.
Onym and Oryk nodded curtly to me, and then they headed toward the trees with their obedient warriors directly behind.
I moved to follow the last of them, and the Baroness suddenly met my eyes with a single sober stare just before she turned and headed back along the bridge toward House Natyr.
I took a steadying breath as I jogged to catch up to the swift moving troop, and I couldn’t help but replay the tender moment I’d just witness between Onym and the Tenebrae Mage. I knew his hatred for half-elves well enough, so I doubted he’d be the sort to be intimate with a human.
Still … I’d never seen him as wholly relaxed as he’d looked in the few seconds the Baroness grazed her hand along his skin, not to mention the use of her first name. I smirked as I recalled the way the Baroness had insisted Aurora call her Nulena and wished I could have been there the first time she’d ordered Onym to do so.
He may have been a deadly viper, but it was hard to imagine him keeping up with a Tenebrae Mage like her. Then again, the two seemed to compliment each other well. He was light and deadly as sin, and she was all shadows and cunning tricks.
I shook the thought from my mind when I realized I’d fallen behind the troops again, and I dug the vial of Triorlin berries from my pocket. The poultice Shoshanne applied to numb the stitches was wearing off now, and I was forced to limp with every other step as I fought to keep pace with the troops.
They moved like a silent snake through the jungles and wove themselves around ferns and over felled trees easily without pause. As I popped two berries in my mouth, I realized their weapons didn’t seem to rattle at all, and the plants they brushed aside didn’t make a rustle of noise.
I grinned and decided this must be the value they found in the Baroness. I’d felt the surge of her magic all around me, and now that I moved behind the whole troop, I was sure she’d enchanted the lot of them. They didn’t make a sound as they quickly headed north through the thick jungle, and I made a point of kicking a stone as I passed just to check my guess.
The rock skidded over a log and broke against a small boulder, and I raised my eyebrows when the whole thing happened like a silent film in front of me. I could still hear the jungle around me though, and the birds that screeched overhead were completely unbothered by the army who disturbed their nesting grounds.
I felt as transparent as a shadow, and the notion made my mind begin to churn a mile a minute.
The Baroness must have been an incredibly powerful mage if she was able to attach her powers to us without having to come along. Every mage I’d ever met worked solely in connection with their element when it was directly around them, but this was something different.
It meant Baroness Batonova hadn’t even needed to travel with Rhys for him to stalk us through the jungle after the meeting with the Elven Council.
I eyed the ruthless band of elves in front of me, and my pulse kicked up a notch at the thought of how much damage the Tenebrae Mage could do without ever getting her hands dirty. She could be as powerful as Abrus for all I knew, and I remembered the intensity of the Lux Mage’s powers when I’d had to battle him.
Right now, she was safe and seemingly uninvolved in a nearly empty fortress at House Natyr, but her stealthy shadow play would ensure a deadly ambush for House Syru nearly five leagues away. It wasn’t my place to judge the woman’s tactics, but I couldn’t stop questioning where her loyalties really lay.
She’d praised my work for House Fehryn, only to curl up with the son of their most hated enemy not two days later. Then there was the errand she’d sent me on for the good of the ailing and secluded leader in the south. Unless she’d only sent me there to be ambushed by House Syru.
All of these thoughts unnerved me in the same way Abrus’ double dealings had, but either way, if she chose who would live or die as easily as this, the last mistake I ever wanted to make was land on the wrong side of that woman’s good graces.
So, I decided I’d graciously allow her to call me her friend until I knew better. Not that I had much of a choice, apparently.
I shook my head to clear my mind and popped another Triorlin berry in my mouth. The silvery energy bloomed across my chest and pulsed throughout my limbs. Suddenly, I could easily keep up with the elves, and my leg stopped protesting to every log I leapt over. My eyesight became incredibly acute, and I was able to notice every flick of a feather or magenta tail as I wove through the jungle at the back of the noiseless army.
We travelled like this without slowing for longer than I could tell, and the sun had already set by the time we neared the territory of House Syru.
The elves were only slightly winded when we finally came to a stop, and I discreetly popped another berry in my mouth before Onym and his brother Oryk came over to me.
“House Syru is just through the trees ahead,” Oryk explained. “The room with the head of the house is in the southern corner.”
“Do not waste time with the warriors in the grounds,” Onym ordered in a low voice. “Our army will handle them. Make your way to the leader as swiftly as you can and do not be seen.”
I furrowed my brow. “Are we even visible?” I asked curiously. “I mean … we don’t make a sound, but we could be--”
Onym interrupted me and addressed me like I was a complete idiot. “Of course, we are visible,” he snapped. “What sort of magic do you imagine this is?”
I let him be as condescending as he wanted while my mind drifted to the beautiful Deya. By the look on Onym’s face, he didn’t even know a magic like hers existed in Nalnora. I was a little pleased House Natyr had so grossly underestimated the solitary house to the south. Not to mention, they clearly didn’t know the Baroness’ powers as well as they thought.
They really were too cocky for their own good.
So, I shrugged ignorantly to the black-eyed elf, and he rolled his eyes as he looked away.
“Move swiftly through the house,” Oryk told me. “There are at least three guards on every floor. Climb three stories up and kill the leader as quickly as you can. He is a cunning elf, and he will not go easily if you hesitate.”
I furrowed my brow once more and was about to question this last part, but the two brothers had already turned to lead their troops through the trees. Suddenly, my own two guards were right beside me, and they offered me a curt nod before they followed the others.
I let out a long and low breath as they disappeared into the blackened trees. I liked this arrangement less and less as the time for action drew closer, but I focused on my own agenda to ease my nerves.
Whether or not House Natyr knew what we were truly up against didn’t matter. The Master’s influence was somewhere within the walls of House Syru, and this was my one and only chance to root it out. Still, I half regretted I had ordered the women to stay behind as I considered how outnumbered I was.
But I didn’t need to be worrying about Onym pulling a blade through Aurora either, so silver lining.
I stretched the muscles of my neck and back and double checked the rifle on my shoulder before I quickly jogged to catch up to the troop. They stood in a silent line within the shadows of the tree line when I joined them, and I peered through the thick fronds toward the fortress of House Syru.
It was a bleak and ominous stone structure that reminded me a lot of an asylum, and it was at least twice as large as House Natyr, though much better fortified. A dozen grim elves stood guard along the base of the building, and their stern faces were cast in shadows beneath the torches that flickered above their heads.
Their bright red tunics looked bloody red in the dim light, and their metal vambraces glinted as they held their glaives across their fronts. These blades looked to be made of much stouter metal than the elegant blades I was used to seeing amongst the elves, and I sent out a tendril of my magic to test their strength.
I knew I could melt every one of them down right then, but I didn’t want the guards to suspect anything until it was absolutely necessary. So, I took a moment to explore the makeup of the weapons, and I found their glaives weren’t made of steel at all, but rather tungsten.
I raised my brows and took another steadying breath as I realized how heavy they must be. Now that I looked closer, I could see the chiseled and angry looking muscles that bulged on the arms of the elves of House Syru, and I glanced sidelong to check out the build of the elf beside me.
He was half as strong as any of the warriors who guarded the fortress, and I had to admit I wasn’t quite as impressively built either.
Still, it wasn’t the brute strength of the guards that worried me most.
I knew these elves would keep fighting even with a blade stuck in their gut, and it occurred to me that whether or not I succeeded, most, if not all of the warriors beside me would not make it back to House Natyr.
Something told me the leader had known this already, and I was a little repulsed as I recalled the way their house tended to dispose of their dead so thoughtlessly. He’d sent eight warriors and potentially his own sons to their deaths for the sake of killing a single man. They honestly could have had a chance with all eighteen of their men against these twelve, but I wasn’t in charge of how they did things.
I was just the hired assassin.
With that in mind, I let go of the thought of the slaughter that would soon take place in the grounds of the fortress and focused instead on the doors that barred the entrance of House Syru.
The two doors were made of sturdy steel about sixteen inches thick, and a heavy bar was braced across the front to lock them. They were at least as tall as the gates of Aurum had been, but much less impressive overall. Where the dwarves put their efforts equally toward impenetrability and class, the elves went for a strictly dungeon-like functionality.
As I measured the girth of the doors, I wondered where the elves acquired so much steel and who had crafted everything for them. Unless they had a band of dwarves held hostage somewhere in the extensive fortress, I couldn’t imagine how they’d managed it. Then I remembered the mark of the Master I’d seen on the dead elf from the ambush, and I leaned nearer to the elf who stood beside me.
“How long have House Syru had such a huge amount of metal at their disposal?” I whispered.
The elf shrugged but didn’t look over. “At least as long as I’ve been alive.”
I furrowed my brow and studied the lineless face of the elf. “How long is that?”
“Ninety-three years,” he returned before Onym suddenly drew his blade, and the elves rushed from the cover of the trees.
Chapter 19
The moment we left our cover, two daggers found their mark in the heads of the two guards who flanked the entrance of House Syru, and because we still wore the enchantment of the Baroness, the remaining guards stood stunned long enough for me to take another two down with my revolver.
Then all of their eyes narrowed on the silent ambush that peeled from the shadows across the grounds, and they advanced slowly with perverse sneers on their faces. One guard removed the glaive of a lifeless elf as he made his way forward, and I eyed the ridges of his arms as he raised both weighted weapons aloft.
Three turquoise clad elves came up against this beast at once, but a stout glaive dropped straight through one of their skulls like warm butter. The other two staggered back and dodged the next swipe as the blood red guard swung his heavy blade out wide for a deadly blow. He left the first glaive impaled down to the shoulders of his first victim and went at the others with several of these merciless swings. One of the turquoise clad elves managed to slip close enough to slice him across the calf with his sword while the other impaled his gut with their glaive.
I noticed the blood red guard lurch painfully in response, but he was still able to decapitate the elf who’d stabbed him only a split second later.
The guard wrenched the blade from his gut with a growl as he spun and sought the last of the three. He staggered off balance as he clutched his pierced gut, and I took the opportunity to melt the stubborn metal of his glaive before it could meet its mark.
It had taken at least three times as much effort to force the tungsten to yield compared to the steel glaives of House Natyr, but the moment it did, the guard instinctively turned as if he knew who was responsible. The turquoise clad elf whipped around his back the other way, and he drove his sword between the ribs of the blood red guard. The brutish elf finally fell to his knees, and he swayed there with a look of painful anguish twisting his features as he continued to watch me carefully.
I was sprinting across the grounds with my two guards close ahead when the blood red guard fell forward and remained flattened and bleeding across the ground.
For a brief second, I was stunned they’d managed to take him down, but I was quickly distracted by two more guards who came at us from either side.
One of my guards deftly pulled his dagger from his belt and impaled an attacker in the chest, and the blood red guard gave a violent jerk as he stumbled and fell. He still managed to wrench the blade from himself, and he hurled it right back to bury it into the elf who’d thrown it. It pierced him in the temple, and the two of them dropped like rags at nearly the same moment.
I stopped in my tracks as I waited for the red guard to rise again, but he was truly dead from the force of the simple dagger, and I nudged him with my boot to be sure.
