Assassin's Curse (38 page)

“Nana,” both girls screamed.
 
They came rushing forward to help her.
 

Jeda was about to move to her when he heard the cursing.

“Damn witches, I’ll kill them all.”
 
Mave stood up and removed the remains of two sets of chest armor.
 
Learning from his previous experience with the old village witch, whenever there was any chance of fighting witches, he always wore two sets of armor.
 
He may have been evil incarnate, but he was not stupid.

Jeda stood ready to meet his old nemesis.

The girls reached Natasha.
 
“Check Keisha,” she begged.

Kala got to her first and yelled back.
 
“She’s alive, Nana.”

“Get her out of that wagon,” Natasha instructed the girls.
 
She struggled to her feet as the other two assassins showed themselves.
 
One had notched another fire arrow but held back from firing it.
 
Natasha quickly surmised that the chance of the twins being injured was too great for him to fire the wagon.
 

“Do not leave her, girls,” Natasha yelled over her shoulder.
 
She stood to meet the oncoming assassins.
 
In her weakened state, the blast she threw at the two assassins missed one entirely, but succeeded in knocking the other down.
 
Unfortunately, the one she knocked down held the fire arrow.
 
It dropped into the dried bushes and quickly roared out of control.
 
The fire spread quickly.

“Help me, Kara.
 
We must get Mama out of the wagon,” Kala said.
 
The two girls each grabbed one of Keisha’s arms and dragged her out of the wagon and away from the flames.

Jeda glanced around.
 
They were in dire states.
 
He was about to lock blades with Mave, a weakened Natasha was facing two assassins alone, and the girls were dragging Keisha down the road away from the fire.

Damn, this couldn’t be any worse.
       

Kara finally stood after dragging Keisha out of danger.
 
She saw that her nana would need help before her father.
 
The two assassins were quickly surrounding Natasha, one with drawn knives and the other with a swirling sling filled with deadly shot.
 
As she ran to help Natasha, she saw Mave and Jeda began to fight.
 
Concentrating as she ran forward, she let her babies fall into her hands.
 
As she closed the distance to them, she threw her blades with a burst of air at the assassin with the knives.
 
With a satisfying thud, both blades struck his chest, and though he wore armor, the air spell gave the knives enough power to penetrate straight through.
 
He dropped like a stone with a look of shock on his face.

The deadly dance between Jeda and Mave began.
 
Jeda rushed Mave head-on with knives against his blades and, though he fought furiously, Jeda was again outmatched.
 
The blades were just too much of an advantage over knives.
 
Mave cut Jeda across his right arm and swung his blade for a
head shot
.
 
Jeda met the downward cut with the knife in his left hand, but the strength in his left arm could not completely block the swing.
 
The blow drove Jeda to his knees.

Mave shifted his blade to skirt the knife-edge and the blade cut deeply into Jeda’s shoulder.
 
He cried out from the pain of the wound and, with both arms incapacitated, looked up into the hate-filled eyes of his former teacher.
 

“Finally, I have you right where I want you,” Mave said, staring intensely at Jeda kneeling before him.
 
“The masters wanted me to bring you back alive, but this is too good an opportunity to pass up.”
 
As Mave lifted his sword to deliver the
death-blow
, an intense blast of wind hit him from the side, knocking him off his feet.
 
He looked up to see Kara preparing to hit him with another blast.

“You leave him alone,” she snarled, releasing another wind spell.
 
The intensity of the spell was so strong that it smashed Mave flat on the dirt.
 
It was like solid stone was pummeling him instead of air.
 

Kara’s eyes narrowed and the pretty girl’s face became a mask of hatred as she watched Mave try to crawl away from her devastating attack.
 
She was concentrating on blasting him again when the second assassin let go with his own missile, targeting Kara instead of Natasha.
 
The stone glanced off Kara’s head and she crumpled to the ground.

Natasha cried out when she saw Kara fall.
 
She whirled on the man responsible.
 
With a power she did not recognize as her own, she flung an elemental blast at the assassin that practically blew him in half.
 
No armor, single- or double-layered, could have saved him from that blast.
 

Mave saw the gypsy’s attack and knew he was grossly over-matched.
 
As he began to look for a way out, the fire finally reached the wagon and it blew up like a raging inferno.
 
The blast knocked Natasha off her feet and Mave saw his chance to escape.
 
He spotted Kara’s unconscious body near Jeda and ran to scoop her up.
 
As he picked her up, Jeda tried feebly to stop him, but Mave kicked him contemptuously in the face and continued running.
 

Kala screamed at Natasha when she saw Mave grab her sister, but the flaming wagon blocked her view.
 
Natasha ran around the wagon to see Mave run into a copse of trees further along the road.
 
In a mere moment, a horse burst from the trees carrying both Mave and the unconscious Kara away from the group.
 
In no time at all, they were both out of sight.
        

Kala came running up and knelt down to assess the damage to her father.
 

“Poppy,” she cried.
 
“Don’t try to move.
 
I’ll fix you.
 
I’ll fix you real good.”

When she pulled back his leather jerkin, she saw the bones of his shoulder pushing through the wound and blood rushing out.
 
She immediately shoved both her hands into the gaping wound and concentrated so intently that her eyes rolled back into her head.
 
She nearly
collapsed
from her sudden outpouring of strength, but she was able to slow the rush of blood.
 
Without her immediate help, Jeda would have bled out in minutes.
   

Natasha saw Kala swaying above Jeda’s prone body and raced over to the young girl.
 
The wise woman added her strength to Kala’s and they both began the battle to save Jeda’s life once again.
 
The two healers concentrated their efforts on the terrible injury.
 
After a few moments, the magic of their healing began to knit the muscle and tissues back together.
 
Jeda’s back arched in agony, but he never lost consciousness.
 
When the two healers finally finished, Jeda struggled to his knees.

“You need to stay down before you fall and re-injure yourself,” Natasha warned.
 
“Your body cannot keep sustaining these devastating injuries.
 
One of these times, we will not be able to heal you.”

Jeda was panting with the exertion to stand.
 
“But you did heal me again this time, right?”

“For the most part, yes, but the injury to your right shoulder was great and I’m afraid you may never have full use of your right arm again.
 
We have done the best we could, but you have also lost a lot of blood and will be weak for days.”

Jeda ignored her warning and climbed to his feet.
 
He stood swaying like a drunken sot, but slowly moved to the far side of the burning wagon and looked down the road where Mave had taken Kara.
 
The two assassins from Mave’s team were dead on the road, one with Kara’s knives still sticking out of his chest and the other looking like a broken child’s toy, his body bent at awkward angles.

“He will take her to the guild house,” Jeda said, walking up the road with Natasha and Kala helping to support him as he went to check on Keisha.

“Poppy,” Kala sobbed.
 
“Please get Kara back.
 
Please, Poppy, please.”

“I will, little one, I will,” Jeda said, stroking his daughter’s hair.

Jeda knelt beside Keisha and checked her breathing and her heart, finding them both sound.
 
He looked up questioningly at Natasha as she put her hands on her daughter’s head.
 
After a few moments, she sat back and stared helplessly.

“There’s nothing wrong with her body, but I cannot find her spirit.
 
I can’t find her spark.”

“The baby…?” Jeda asked.

“The baby seems healthy and has a strong life spark, but I cannot find Keisha’s.”

“Nana let me help you,” Kala offered bravely, wiping at her tear-streaked face.
 
“I still have strength left.”
 

“Child, you don’t understand,” Natasha replied, still shocked from her discovery.
 
“There is nothing to heal.
 
It is her life spark, the very essence of who she is.
 
It is missing and I don’t know how to fix this.
 
I have never seen such a thing before.”

“I know who can help,” Jeda said.
 
“She’s a witch who lives in a village on the way to Constantine.
 
We will take Keisha to her.
 
She’ll know what to do.”

“Who is this woman you are talking about?” Natasha asked skeptically.

“Her name is Gelda and she is the most powerful healer in all of the covens.”

***

The ship slipped its berth in Faypond as soon as Mave climbed aboard.
 
He had ridden the horse hard in his effort to get to the town quickly.
 
When they had finally entered the small town, the poor animal keeled over dead.
 
He left the animal lying in the streets and made his way to the docks carrying the unconscious girl, signaling to the waiting captain to make sail immediately.
 
He did not want to take any chance that the witches or the gypsies would somehow catch him before he delivered the girl to the Masters.
 

The captain had been at dock in Faypond for days waiting for Mave to arrive.
 
The guild had paid him well and he had his ship ready to cast off at a moment’s notice.
 
No one aboard blinked an eye as Mave carried the young girl into the hold and secured her below.
 
A slight prick from one of the Darkshade darts would keep the little witch out until they finally docked.
 
As the ship rounded the cove and made for the open sea, Mave wrote out a message, attached it to a bird the captain kept on board, and let the bird fly.
 
The guild would be waiting for him by the time they arrived in Constantine.

He stood by the rail of ship, staring out at the deep seas and mused to himself.
 
Although he was delivering one of the twins to the masters, he did so with trepidation.
 
He had no idea what they would think of him losing the other twin and that bastard Jeda.

I guess that could have gone better, but at least we finally have
one
of them.
 
That should count for something.

At least he hoped so.

Jeda stood swaying for a moment and looked around at the devastation.
 
The fires were still raging and the remaining two horses were beginning to spook.
 
Jeda’s
and Natasha’s horses had bolted when the wagon went up in flames.
 
The twins’ horses had thankfully stayed in place, but with the fire coming their way, they would not remain for long.

“We have to get that fire out or get out of here fast.
 
The horses will become more uncontrollable as the fire gets nearer.”

Already the wagon was completely engulfed in flames, and had cut off the road to Faypond completely.

“Can either of you blow the fires out with some kind of wind spell?”

“I’m sorry Poppy, but Kara was the one who did that kind of spell.”

“I can do a little more than Kala,” Natasha admitted.
 
“But I could not even completely heal you; I am just too exhausted.”

“Do what you can.
 
We have to get through that,” Jeda said, pointing at the flames across the road.

Natasha held out her hand to Kala.

“Kala dear, hold my hand.
 
I need to draw power from you.”