Steelfated, p.13
Steelfated, page 13
She glanced about, peeking beneath her wrist. Nothing seemed out of place. She glanced at the softly glowing sundial by the wall, which was operated in the darkness by a soft magelight. It was well past midnight. She groaned, then shut her eyes again and lay still for a moment, trying to clear her mind and go back to sleep.
Sudden realization struck her, and realizing it was that was bothering her gave a quiet laugh. She’d casually thrown her cloak at the chair across from her, but couldn’t see it in the darkness. Shifting positions, she hooked her arms around her knees. Morgain waited for the next flash of lightning to see where it had landed, perhaps on the floor next to it, or even underneath.
A few seconds later, nature gave her answer in a blinding flash of lightning so bright that it lit up the room simply by the light that filtered through the gaps in the shutters. The strike had to have been close, but apparently it was outside the soundproof bubble around the Tower.
Her cloak had landed squarely on the cushion of the chair, explaining why it was so hard to see. She gave a small laugh, then sat up and poured a cup of water from the stone pitcher she had poured before she sat to read. She raised the cup to her lips, and took a deep drink, conscious briefly of the slow pulse of Archenarium through her tattoos. Lightning flashed again, and Morgain’s blood froze. This time, she had caught the faint, almost imperceptible glint of a pair of eyes in the flash of light as well. Eyes peering over the top of her chair next to her. Morgain sat up, too tired to cast a spell from her own energies, and unable to find a containment crystal within reach. She looked over in horror as another flash revealed the silhouette of a man, about six feet tall and lean, standing in the library chambers. Far too short and slight to be Caulder, or anyone she could think of in her hazy moment of panic. She got one arm under her and froze when she realized the man was suddenly at her side. His features, completely shadowed within the hood of a cloak, gave nothing away. She shivered as the man moved. His motion seemed boneless, almost like a snake’s movement. It was a graceful motion, but it contained a hint of something preternatural. He turned his head towards her. Where had she seen movement like that before?
“Lady Morgain Muirdoch.” The man breathed, staring down at her. His voice was deep and soft, though it seemed to fill the room like a gas, rather than how a normal voice should sound. That disturbed her, too. His eyes, though- they were beautiful- they seemed to shine a pale blue faintly, as if back lit by something.
“Who are you?”
“My name is not important right now.” The man whispered.
“Why are you here?” She asked, hiding the tremor in her voice, terrified she knew the answer. As the gleam lit within his eyes, she suddenly felt almost naked in her sleeveless bed tunic and the short, flowing breeches that made up her bedclothes. She felt calm and soothed, though, as if she were still dreaming, safe. Someone who had such beautiful eyes wouldn’t hurt her. She frowned slightly. Something was wrong here. Was he trying to use telepathy on her? Instinctively, she snapped her mental defenses up. The shadowy stranger with the pale eyes seemed no different- his voice was still calming.
“Now you get to the more important questions.” He said, his eyes never leaving her face. He reached toward her slowly, extending one finger as if he were going to stroke her chin.
“Why are you here?” she repeated. Why did she sound so angry? The man laughed softly.
“I was sent.”
“Who sent you?” she asked, almost ready to giggle like a little girl, brushing her hair behind her ear again.
“Friends, Lady Morgain, friends. They miss you dearly and wanted me to check in on you. I brought you something from them.” he said. His voice was so nice, so calming. The lightning flashed again. He had something shiny in his right hand. Morgain leaned forward, smiling, eager for whatever gift this man had brought.
Another bolt of lightning flashed, and something silver flickered through the air an inch from the tip of her nose. The man drew back with a hiss and turned. Morgain felt something hot splatter across her face and heard the clatter of steel as it landed on the floor. Another flicker of silver flashed across her vision, and she saw a second man in the chamber.
At first she thought the newcomer was a monster, or a demon. His face twisted in a feral snarl. But when she turned to look at him fully, she realized it was a man.
Young, her own age perhaps, possibly a couple of years older. Black hair plastered to his forehead and face by the heavy rains- and his eyes- gods, his eyes- piercing blue-grey things-windows into the heart of storms raging in their depths. They seemed to stare through her, to her very soul when they flicked her direction, though they held her gaze for less than a heartbeat. What in the thirteen hells was this man doing here, and what was wrong with his face? Dark hair plastered to his head, glittering rivulets of water streamed down his face. But that did not explain the nearly demonic cast it carried. He ran toward her and quickly as a striking snake; he boxed her ears.
Amazed at the rude behavior, and made dizzy by the clap, her eardrums stunned, she turned her head back towards the first man to ask for help, and her blood froze.
The first man, who had approached as a friend and offered her gifts, had a wickedly curved dagger in one hand, and a sword breaker in the other. His cowl had fallen backwards to reveal a head that made her stomach churn horridly. Pale gray, dead flesh covered a round head, in which sat two pale, milky eyes, above the eyes, protruding from the middle of the forehead was a short something- not quite a horn, more like an antenna almost, at the end of which dangled a bead of pale luminescence. The same pale luminescence she had seen in its eyes a moment before. Its mouth, far too large for such a head, overfilled with vicious crescent shaped teeth. It smiled at the second man as its mouth moved in what she thought was another hiss. Her ears were ringing too loudly for her to tell, though.
In the darkness, the second man’s eyes seemed to shine with a faint silver sheen, but she could no longer be certain of anything. He had a lean rapier in one hand, and a dagger in the other.
The two crashed together in a flurry of steel unlike Morgain had ever seen, though she could hear none of it. The way they moved was terrifying. She had never seen people move quite like these two, even after watching her brother fight frequently.
They were an absolute economy of motion, each lightning quick thrust and parry measured to do exactly what it needed to do and no more. Each movement seeming almost mechanical. There was another flash of light, and Morgain saw another figure appear behind the man, whose face had lost its demonic cast at the least, though his eyes had become sharper. She opened her mouth to scream, to give him some sort of warning perhaps, but she hesitated- afraid that the noise would distract him from dealing with the first assailant.
Then recognition hit her-along with the next flash of lightning. She did know the man, though she had not seen him in at least five years.
Her rescuer was Radyn Halstraad. Her father’s most hated rival’s son. The man who in the entirety of Ironlake likely had the least reason to save her. The only man in Ironlake who actually had a good reason to let these things that had invaded the tower kill her. Her hesitation led to her making no noise or movement.
It was a moot point, as it was. In one fluid move, without turning, Radyn flicked his rapier back over his head and picked off the overhand thrust of the dagger aimed to go between his shoulder blades.
Shifting his feet and opening his stance to a more fluid and seamless form of fighting, more suitable to fight multiple opponents, Radyn turned towards the window and in a flash of light Morgain saw a form in the curtains.
This third intruder exploded towards him, swinging another of the curved daggers.
Radyn dropped his rapier, and barely stepped inside the blow, taking a cut above his eyebrow and slamming his assailant into the window. He brought his knee crashing into the groin of this new assailant and realized, to his apparent dismay, that it was a female. Instead of using preternatural agility to dodge the blow, he charged, bull rushing the female… thing. Snaring the wrist of the arm that held the knife over his head, he rolled one shoulder to the side and forward. He jerked the arm down hard across his shoulder, hyper extending it and breaking it at the elbow. In the same motion, he rolled the knife from the nerveless fingers and drove it towards the lower jaw of the woman.
Morgain realized his mistake maybe a half a heart beat after he did. She could see the garrote begin to tighten around his neck. There was a fourth assassin, and this one had his feet on the windowsill and pushed the shutter open. The storm outside raged and lashed water into the room. She could see that he was leaning back with his feet pressed against the stone, holding himself by the silk cord that was around Radyn’s neck. Somehow he’d managed to get his left hand between the garrote and his neck, and while it kept the windpipe from being crushed, it pinned one hand down, and he still couldn’t get any air. He seemed rather unfazed by the whole thing, however.
To Morgain’s credit, she could have screamed, she wanted to scream, but she followed the gaze of Radyn’s eyes to the floor by her feet, and saw the dagger that the first assailant had dropped when Radyn’s dagger had struck his hand. She dove for it, falling across a small cushioned footstool, and the clatter of steel on stone, a clatter that she couldn’t hear, turned the heads of the two assassins who were stalking towards his struggling form. She threw the dagger towards him, and the first assassin caught it. The instant of distraction was all that Radyn had needed, though.
He produced another dagger from his belt, and in the same motion, cut the fabric cord of the garrote, causing the man who had been holding himself in the window with it to tumble out the window with a soundless scream. Radyn stabbed blindly over his shoulder and buried the knife in the woman’s eye. He rolled under the kick aimed at his chin, which tried to knock him out the window as well, and flicked his wrist across the second assailant’s throat. The man caught the blow aimed at his throat with his own dagger, but that had never been more than a feint.
The blow that the intruder didn’t see, the blow that mattered, opened his femoral artery from just below his groin to his knee. A quickly fatal wound. A wound which erupted in a fountain of dark blood and left him lying on the floor in a rapidly expanding pool of his own blood.
Radyn’s leap across the room in a pair of quick bounds seemed just slightly beyond what even an extremely athletic man should have been able to do. He crashed unceremoniously across the chair and into the small footrest. She was still trying to extricate herself from. Somehow, miraculously, avoiding stepping on her. He caught the last man in a flying tackle, wrapping his arm around the man’s chin and jaw and twisting hard and lifting the chin as he passed, spinning the thing’s head all the way around in a sickening motion. He didn’t stop there either, burying his knife in between its eyes as its teeth snapped at his arms, and driving his bastard sword hard into its back, all before he hit the ground.
Landing on the floor in a roll, and without breaking his momentum, he gracefully rolled back to his feet, and drew a cruel looking bearded axe from his belt. His eyes scanned the room as he jumped up on the chair without looking. Morgain still couldn’t hear anything. She looked up at him.
“Thank you for saving my life.” she said, or she thought she said- everything was muffled and furry sounding.
“Keep track, will you?” He retorted dryly. She gave a small snort of laughter.
“I suppose. I had a dream once that you killed me, though, so technically, that makes us even.”
“Hmm.”
“Nothing else to say about that?”
Silence answered her. Radyn continued to search the room, his head cocked to one side.
The door swung open, and Caulder stepped through, followed closely by a pair of the grey clad guards, Terrence, and Gwen, a half eaten loaf of bread in his hands.
“What is the meaning of this?” Caulder snapped. “Why are you in my library, Halstraad?” Radyn stood stock still and didn’t move. He looked at Caulder and pointed towards his ears, then at Morgain’s. Caulder looked at them, then looked to the side. Gwen stepped forward and tilted her head, and grasped Morgain’s head between her hands. She stiffened briefly, then Gwen moved to do the same to Radyn. She hated being healed- it always felt like there were a hundred spiders crawling beneath her skin. Radyn shifted and raised his left hand, warding her off. Apparently, he didn’t need it, anyway. He reached up and pulled a chunk of wax from each of his ears.
“What. Are. You. Doing. Here. Halstraad.” Caulder growled.
“Scáthaigh.” Radyn said flatly. Gwen stepped forward and grabbed his head between her palms. He hissed in irritation, but the cut above his eye closed and the slash across his palm from the garrote closed a heartbeat later. “See?”
Terrence stepped toward the man lying in the pool of blood by the door. He pulled the scarf back from the man’s face. As he did, the man dissolved, but not fast enough to keep him from seeing the face that lay beneath it. Morgain’s blood ran colder. Mistbourne in her uncle’s rooms? How had that happened? Morgain jumped up suddenly and ran to Radyn, pulling him into a tight hug and burying her face in his shoulder.
Caulder and Terrence both took this in for a heartbeat, then Radyn moved Morgain off of his shoulder. His grip was gentle, but inexorable. He pushed her back until his arm was nearly straight, then dropped his hands.
“Mythal Cavara.” Caulder swore after a slight hesitation. Terrence gave a low whistle.
“Effective assassins,” he said. “Very effective. Very unlikely to fail as well.”
Caulder grunted as he surveyed the room.
“How many have you killed, Halstraad?” Terrence asked quietly, rising to his feet.
“Four.”
“Then there is still one somewhere.” Caulder responded. Radyn shifted slightly to face the door.
“Perhaps it returned to the South to report.” Gwen said after a moment. Morgain moved to hug him again, but Radyn stepped back and slightly to the right. Before anyone could react, he turned and threw the axe at her uncle.
Caulder shifted slightly, his hand instinctively going for his sword, but the axe whirled past his head, two inches to the right, still close enough to ruffle his faded hair, and struck something behind him. The fifth Mistbourne assassin. The thing took two wobbly steps forward and one to the side. Then it toppled, the blade falling nerveless from its hand. As if nothing had happened, Radyn crossed the room, pulled the axe from the creature’s face, wiped it with a cloth and inspected the edge of the axe. Caulder’s hand released his sword, and he gave a sniff.
“That one won’t be returning to report soon.” Gwen said. Morgain looked at her friend and gave a small smile.
“My thanks, Mistwalker.” he said calmly. Radyn nodded, and while he appeared relaxed, Morgain had the distinct impression that he was a coiled spring, compressed, ready to explode into motion at an instant.
“My thanks as well, Radyn. Though was it really necessary to hit me?” Morgain asked. He looked at her and raised an eyebrow. Terrence and Caulder’s eyes narrowed, and Caulder’s hand strayed once more to his sword.
“I didn’t hit you, I boxed your ears. Believe me or not, it doesn’t matter to me. The truth is, that was for your benefit. Scáthaigh have a rather… unique appearance, in case you didn’t notice- but their voices? Those are intoxicating.” Caulder’s hand dropped from the hilt of his sword and he let out a breath, seeming to deflate slightly as if it relieved him he wouldn’t have to draw the thing. Radyn looked at her fully for the first time, holding her eyes for three whole heartbeats, then gave a shrug. “I stunned your hearing and broke its power over you, and prevented any of the others from getting their voices into your head.”
“You couldn’t have given me a chunk of wax like you had?” she asked dryly. His eyebrow arched and the ghost of a smile danced across his lips.
“Given a few more seconds, perhaps. Most people can resist the voices one or two, if prepared for it, at least. Scáthaigh always works in groups of five, and if all five were speaking at once, I wouldn’t trust myself to resist the power in their voices.” He said with a shrug as he retrieved his weapons, which lay scattered about the room.
“It’s not telepathy, at least not any kind of telepathy that any of the Druids have taught me to protect myself from.” Morgain said. They had heavily trained her to constantly keeping up her mental barriers against telepathic intrusion. Her high birth had made it necessary for the Druids to spend extra focus on that skill. The rarity of her talent had made such a practice even more prudent. Her tattoos supposedly offered some basic forms of protection from other types of magic as well, though she didn’t think that they offered much in the way of protection from sounds. Radyn shrugged slightly.
“Doesn’t change what they do.”
He strode across the three paces to the chair in which the first assassin had been lurking, and with a kick spun the chair about so it was facing her. He sat down, leaning his arms across the back of the chair.
“Do you intend to sit there all night?” Caulder asked coldly. Radyn flicked his eyes to him and then went back to surveying the room.
“Seeing as I just saved your life, and that of your niece, it seems prudent that I might sit here for a moment or two and rest.”
“All five Scáthaigh are dead. There is no reason for you to stay now.” Caulder said coolly as he tore a chunk off of his reclaimed bread.
“Why didn’t the alarms sound, Caulder?” Radyn said darkly, blue-grey eyes holding her uncle in their gaze as he nonchalantly took a draught from a water skin that had been tied at his belt. Caulder paused in chewing for a moment.
“Shite.” He grumbled, tossing the bread onto the shelf beside him and drawing his sword.
Outside, bells started tolling frantically.
