Assassin's Curse (45 page)

Grand Master Dykara waved Mave forwarded.

“Brother Mave, the Countess has waited many years for her just due.
 
Let us not make her wait any longer.”

“As you command,” Mave answered.
 
He dropped the girl and drew one of his swords in a single, fluid motion.
 
He moved forward with the speed of a deadly viper.
 
As Catherine turned to face him, he drove the sword straight through her chest, piercing her heart.
 
An evil grin curved his lips as watched the shocked look on her face before slowly redrawing his sword.

“Brother Mave, what have you done?” Grand Master Dykara asked, shocked at the assassin’s behavior.
 

Mave nodded slightly toward the master.
 
“Giving her what she deserved.”

As Catherine slumped to the floor, Elizabeth saw what Mave had done.
 
It only took her a few seconds to react.
 
Her hand raised and she threw an elemental blast at him, intending to rip him in two.

“Treachery!” she screamed.
 
“We have been betrayed.”

Mave knew what the witch would do and jumped to the side as the blast came his way.
 
Grand Master Dykara was not so quick and caught the blast full in the chest.
 
Unlike Mave, he wore no armor and the blast ripped through him, killing him instantly.

“Murder,” Mave yelled.
 
“The witches have killed the Grand Master.”

As Mave yelled and ducked for cover, he saw dozens of brothers armed with every weapon imaginable come rushing into the council chambers.
 
That was when it seemed like the gates of hell had broken loose.

***

The two continued making their way slowly along the corridor, checking each room for signs of Kara when they heard the sounds of blasts coming from somewhere ahead of them.
 
The percussive blasts seemed to reverberate nonstop in the long corridor and caused Jeda’s sixth sense to scream up his back.
 
   

“Something bad is happening,” Jeda said, looking at Kala.

“Poppy, I think those are witch blasts,” she replied.
 
“Like the kind Kara can do.”

Jeda quickened his step, rushing headlong down the corridor no longer worried about any guards he might meet along the way.
 
He slipped two more of his knives from their hidden sheaths, mentally noting he had but two left.
 
As they ran forward, Jeda realized his worst fears as he heard the alarm sounding throughout the fortress.
 
It was an alarm of attack and a call to arms for every brother in the fortress.

“Hurry,” he called back to Kala.
 
“We are out of time.”

They rounded a final curve and finally saw the staircase leading up to the Grand Masters’ Chamber.
 
The sound of battle was coming from up those stairs and they hurried towards the stairs.
 
As the neared the staircase, the room nearest the stairs opened and two more guards burst out, belting on weapons and rushing to the stairs as well.
 
Neither guard saw the intruders behind them as they pelted up the stairs in their haste to reach the Grand Masters’ Chamber.
 
Jeda ran up behind the slower guard and sliced the back of his knee, instantly crippling him and causing him to crash back down the stairs.
 
Jeda
side-stepped
the downed man and Kala jumped over his prostrate body, but as the guard fell he let out a yell of alarm and his companion turned and met Jeda head on.

Jeda crashed into him and the two fell on the stairs, grappling with each other, reaching for any opening they could find.
 
Kala yelled and jumped at the guard, causing him to look up at this new assailant.
 
That was all Jeda needed and he punched forward with his blade into the guard’s chest.
 
The guard fell back, grabbing at the blade sticking out his chest and leaving Jeda and Kala to continue their mad rush up the stairs to the Grand Masters’ Chambers

Jeda’s senses were screaming at him and he yelled to Kala, “Quickly now before we are too late.”

Jeda arrived at the top of the staircase with Kala right on his heels and they both emerged into the war zone the council chamber had become.

Jeda was immediately accosted by another guard, and did not see Kala running into the scuffle looking for Kara.
 
He heard her scream a few moments later and made short work of the brother to go after her.
 
She was standing a few feet in front of him and staring across the smoke-filled room at a small body lying motionless on the floor.

“Poppy, it’s Kara, but I can’t feel her.
 
I think she’s dead.
 
Oh please, don’t let her be dead.”
 
Tears started rolling down the young girl’s face.

Jeda peered through the smoke, seeing a familiar silhouette bending over Kara’s still form.
 
He rushed forward, readying his arm to throw his knife and yelling at the top of his lungs.

“Mave, leave her alone,” he yelled, letting loose the blade with deadly accuracy.

Mave looked up in shock, seeing the blade coming straight at him with no time to react.
 
At the same time as Jeda threw his blade, however, Gelda let loose a terrific blast of wind in all directions, aimed at disrupting the other projectiles coming at her and Elizabeth.
 
Her blast worked well: too well, for it also knocked Jeda’s blade off course.
 
It gave Mave the precious seconds he needed to escape.
 
He bent and picked up Kara’s limp body, smiled across the room at Jeda, and ran back into the fortress.

“Poppy!”

Jeda whirled and saw another brother swinging a deadly blade at the young girl, but before he could react, a blast blew the brother into the far wall, knocking him off his feet and rendering him unconscious.
 
Jeda looked over to Elizabeth, standing with her hands poised, looking for another target to vent her anger on, looking none the worse for all her efforts at spell casting.
  

Gelda was beside her, a bit more peaked-looking, but still standing tall and looking for targets of her own.
 
Jeda motioned to Kala and together they made their way to the two witches.
 
Through the smoke and clouds of dust, Jeda could see the utter devastation the two witches had wrought in the council chambers.
 

“Enough!
 
Brothers stop fighting immediately,” yelled one of the masters above the din.
 
The masters had finally regained some semblance of control and were ordering the rest of the brothers to stand down, but there were dozens of them lying dead or unmoving on the ground and another dozen or so crawling away leaving bloody trails behind them.

As Jeda and Kala neared the two witches, Kala stopped short and suddenly ran to one of the prone bodies.
 
She knelt down and tentatively reached out her hand to the woman she had found, not needing her healing talents to see she was beyond saving.
 
Her chest was savagely ripped opened and her blood lay in a wide pool surrounding her.
 
Kala thought she was already dead, until her eyes fluttered open at Kala’s touch.
 

Catherine gave a weak smile to the young girl.
 
“Well, there you are at last,” she said, mistaking Kala for her sister, “I finally found you.”

“Grandmother, don’t try to talk, rest now,” Kala replied through tear-filled eyes, not telling her newfound grandmother who she really was.
 

“Oh child, I am not long for this world, begrudge me not my last few words,” she said with painful breaths.
 
“I have searched for you and your sister for many years and though I never laid eyes on you, I have loved you both dearly.
 
You are the children of my beloved son, the scions of a great family line, and the inheritors of the Berkshire name and wealth.
 
Seeing you now, I can rest easy knowing you and your sister are finally safe at last.”

Catherine closed her eyes and let out her last breath, smiling as she finally found her peace on Earth.
 
Kala looked up to see Elizabeth, Gelda, and Jeda standing over her and listening to the dying woman’s last breath.

“She is gone child,” Gelda said.
 
“She rests peacefully now.”

Thank the gods
, Elizabeth added silently.
 

“I have to go as well,” Jeda said.
 
“I have to find Mave and Kara.
 
I know where he’ll take her.
 
Kala, stay with your grandmother and aunt.
 
I won’t be long.”

As Jeda ran into the bowels of the fortress, Elizabeth, Gelda, and Kala turned to face the remaining masters standing behind their table.
 

“Well, this isn’t exactly what I expected,” Gelda said, looking around at the destroyed council chambers.

***

As Jeda ran through the fortress corridors, he checked his forearm harnesses to make sure his last four knives were secure.
 
Each harness was made to carry three blades, but during the fight in the Masters’ Chambers, he had thrown two and had not had the time to retrieve them.
 
His knives were unique in design, each about six inches in length, weighted and balanced for throwing, but useless in close combat against swords.
 
The blades had neither the length nor the cross guard needed to block or deflect sword strikes, but Jeda was counting on his skill at throwing them to give him an edge.
 
He had no delusions that he would need all his skill to defeat Mave and, being down two knives to start, more than a bit of luck to help him through.
    

Well, four will just have to do.

He continued heading straight to where he knew Mave waited
;
the room where everything had started, where Jeda made Mave look foolish that first time long ago, and where he finally came to belong to the guild of assassins.

Jeda stepped into the testing chamber and found Mave waiting for him at the far end, standing over the prone body of Kara.

“So, traitor, which weapons will you choose this time?” Mave asked.

“Why change now?” Jeda replied, drawing two knives.

“Yes, why would you change now?” Mave sneered, brandishing and weaving his pair of deadly swords.
 
“You have always been pathetic, since that first night I brought you here.
 
That was the biggest mistake of my life, saving your scrawny, little ass.
 
I should have left you to burn with your father.
 
You have been nothing but trouble to me.”

Jeda stopped short at Mave’s sudden admission.
 
He never knew which assassin had killed his father and brought him to the guild, but Mave’s confession rang true.
 
All the years of slights and extra punishment the man had heaped upon him as a boy now became crystal clear.

“So, it was you who killed my father and brought me here,” Jeda replied.
 

“Who else would have been chosen to fulfill an important contract from such an elite customer?
 
Killing your snooping father was paramount to their plans.
 
I was assigned the honor of finally shutting him up.
 
He had never learned that poking his nose into the business of the powerful would get it cut off, usually at the neck.
 
It’s too bad I had to make his death look like an accident though; I would have loved to see his face as I cut his beating heart from his chest.
 
I made the mistake of thinking you could be molded into an elite killer like me.”

Jeda knew that Mave was telling him all this to distract him and as hard as he tried to ignore what the bastard was saying, the news was having the desired effect.

“Then, that was your first mistake.
 
I will never be like you.”

“That much is obvious,” Mave replied contemptuously.
   

“Well, after tonight you won’t have to worry about me any longer.”

“Let’s finish this, traitor.”

Without wasting another moment, Jeda ran straight at Mave and leapt up into a forward somersault well before he reached him.
 
It was a move he had learned from his years of travelling with the gypsies; a move he planned on putting to good use.
 
As Jeda leapt up, Mave stopped and went on guard.
 
At the apex of his leap, Jeda threw both knives at Mave with the added momentum of his leap giving the throws more power.
 
In his rush, Jeda did not find his ‘killing state’ to enhance the throw and worried that the attack would fail.
 
He saw Mave deflect one of the flying blades, but then watched with satisfaction as the other slammed into his chest.
 
As he stood up from his leap, he was surprised to see Mave still standing.